City state revenues continue to drop

By Larry Blaskey
Douglas Dispatch
Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 11:06 AM MDT


The City of Douglas recently received more bad news from the state.


Next budget year, the city will lose another $129,000 to the general fund and $34,000 in HURF funds based on U.S. Census and state collections. The deficit headed into next year’s budget cycle is estimated at $400,000 instead of the predicted $500,000., said City Administrator Curtis Shook.

That is a loss of more than $300,000 of HURF funds over the last three years which has been shifted to the Department of Public Safety.

The new census population for Douglas is 17,378 and its amount of State Shared Revenue is estimated at $802,933 for Vehicle License Tax, $1,211,361 for HURF funds, $1,314,757 for sales tax and $1,466,777 for income tax.

Part of the reason for the drops is the low amount of population growth in Douglas over the last five years. The population grew from 17,195 to 17,378 from 2005 to 2010, an increase of only 178 people or barely 1 percent.

That is in addition to the continuing cuts the state legislators are making to county and city and town governments shared revenues in order to balance the budget.

In 2011, Income Tax is expected to drop by $206,609, HURF funding in Douglas dropped from $1,245,350 to $1,211,361, while state shared sales tax funds are expected to increase slightly, from $1,290,008 to $1,314,757.

Overall state shared revenue for the state dropped more than $76 million.

Copyright © 2013 Douglas Dispatch

Comments

    Bob wrote on Mar 25, 2011 2:41 PM:

    " Time for us to join Baja Arizona and get rid of our connection to Phoenix.

    StartOurState.org "

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