Here is bad news, but just how bad is hard to gauge.

Waco’s sales tax rebate for March fell 17.21 percent from March 2009 — so what already was shaping up as a mediocre budget year for rebates got worse.

March rebates reflect sales in January and are reported to the Texas Comptroller’s Office in February.

Waco’s check for March is $1.66 million, which is about $348,000 less than the check it received last March.

City budget officer June Skerik has called the Comptroller’s Office to find out more about the drop.

She knows this — it does not necessarily mean Waco residents simply quit spending in January.

“We have been told that a ‘prior period adjustment’ is involved,” Skerik said.

Taxpayer error

Comptroller spokesman R.J. DeSilva said the office has confirmed that a single local taxpayer made a $251,000 sales tax overpayment in December.

The Comptroller’s Office rectified the situation in its March rebate to Waco.

DeSilva would not identify the taxpayer, saying it considers the information confidential.

“It looks like our payment would have been down some from last year, but not nearly as much as it was with the adjustment,” Skerik said.

Skerik said Waco now has fallen $700,000 behind its estimate of rebates it would have received through March of the current fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2009.

The revelation that a taxpayer overpaid in December takes the luster off the $3.35 million check Waco received in February, which reflected December holiday sales.

That check set an all-time rebate record, breaking the previous high of $3.25 million set in February 2009. It now appears that last year’s record is safe.

Skerik said rebates this year have been “up, down, up, down,” and the city will continue to monitor them closely as it prepares to begin the budget-making process for the next fiscal year.

To illustrate the impact of the adjustment on Waco’s sales tax rebate, one can consider the rebate received by Temple in nearby Bell County.

It received a March check of $1.08 million, which is only .8 percent less than the check it received last March, the Comptroller’s Office reports.

State Comptroller Susan Combs this week will deliver $404 million in March sales tax payments to Texas cities, counties, transit systems and special-purpose taxing districts.

It will come from the $1.6 billion these entities sent to the state for January sales — an 8.8 percent drop from last year.

Of that, $271 million will go to Texas cities, a drop of 6.8 percent from last year.

“After eight straight months of double-digit declines, sales tax losses have begun to moderate,” Combs said. “Sales tax revenues continue to be down in major sectors such as retail, oil and gas production, and construction.

“However, there was a slight uptick in the manufacturing sector.

“We will keep monitoring the revenue, and, as we have recently noted, we expect further declines in the near term before a return to sales tax revenue growth later this year,” Combs added.

mcopeland@wacotrib.com

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