Falling tax revenues impact Shelbyville

City departments are continuing to keep expenses down, but a continuing drop in revenue is also still plaguing Shelbyville, according to the city's treasurer.

Gary Cantrell says that while it is nice to be able to go to a large retailer that is not crowded, Shelbyville needs to keep parking lots full to keep tax dollars flowing.

But Cantrell also says that virtually every city department is keeping its expenses as low as possible.

"They are all under budget on their expenses," he said.

When Cantrell gets the next round of numbers for his next report for the city council's study session in February, the fiscal year will be half over, and then he says he will have a clearer picture of what the city faces in the budget next year.

"There will be challenges," he simply said.

Revenue down

For the month ending Nov. 30, unappropriated revenues, which "are stretched across our budget," Cantrell says, were under projections again, this time at $175,980 below what was budgeted.

But while Cantrell also said that property tax collections for December were virtually identical to number from the previous year, it is the state shared revenue line items -- local and state sales taxes and business taxes --- that are hurting Shelbyville the worst.

In particular, local sales taxes are way down -- a total of $96,131 under budget for last November.

"I want to see these parking lots full of cars," Cantrell said of stores around town. He said he recently ran into a city co-worker at one large retailer who told him, "Isn't it great to not have to deal with a crowd."

But Cantrell said that is only "moderately great" because Shelbyville stores need to see more business, adding that one would have a whole new attitude if they had to deal with the numbers the city treasurer sees every day.

"I would love to see some of those parking lots jam-packed," he said.

State sales taxes also were down by $45,822, Cantrell said.

State collection

The budget saw a "big plus" with the TVA in-lieu-of taxes fund, which came in earlier than expected and was about $3,000 more than was budgeted, at $45,577.

But the state collection of business taxes are still impacting the budget as well, with revenues down $45,822 for November.

Tennessee had only been collecting delinquent business taxes, which were previously collected by the city, and began collecting all businesses taxes as of Jan. 1, with the first filing deadline under the new rules slated for Feb. 28.

Cantrell said that when the state completely takes over doing the business tax collection, they will make a monthly remittance, "because we weren't the only city hurt in terms of cash flow."

However, there will be a two-month gap in collecting that tax, because instead of the city receiving the funds "the month it happened" the state will collect the business tax one month, give to the counties and then the city would receive the funds from the county a month following that, "just like they do with the sales tax," Cantrell explained.

Cantrell also added that business taxes are way down for the same reason the sales tax is low -- those parking lots are empty.