By Rupert Howell

Batesville sales tax collections for March exceeded all previous years according to information recently released by the Miss. Department of Revenue whose figures show Batesville’s share of the collections totaled $359,779.

That figure represents approximately 18 percent of the seven percent sales tax collected  in the city limits during March, reported to the state in April and diverted back to the City in May.

The previous high March figure was $348,000 in 2007, the record year before the last recession. Tax collections indicated stagnant growth followed by a slow recovery since then and the latest figures appear to put the local economy ahead of  2007.

The $359,779 is seven percent more than the city received for March 2011 and Batesville’s year-to-date figure of $3,193,065 for sales tax disbursements since July 1, 2011, is three percent above last year’s figures.

The city’s collections of tourism and economic development tax increased eight percent for the month of April. That is a three percent tax that comes entirely to Batesville and precedes the  sales tax diversion payment by one month.

The city received $87,277 for April and has received $889,879 since July 2011, a nine percent year-to-date increase.

Those funds are used to pay for the Batesville Civic Center as well as capital improvements on infrastructure.

Other Panola County municipalities received the following disbursements with the amount of increase or decrease since March 2011 as follows:

Como, $12,542, -16; Courtland, $707, -36; Crenshaw, $5,596, -15; Crowder, $2,111, +28; Pope, $3,896, +6; and Sardis, $30,055, +2.

The City of Sardis also received $7,820 in April for their tourism tax, a 28 percent decrease  over last April, while Como received $3,928 from their tourism tax, an increase of three percent over the previous April.

Other nearby communities received the following disbursements as their share of sales tax collections followed by percent of change over the previous March as: Charleston, $30,598, +8; Clarksdale, $251,016, +1; Grenada, $375,904, +9; Lambert, $3,152, +19; Marks, $21,537, +10; Oakland, $6,072, +2; Oxford, $562,139, +10; Senatobia, $168,363, +8; Taylor, $2,161, +6; and Water Valley, $40,861, +9.

The state’s overall disbursements grew five percent paying back $35,190,227 to municipalities,  with year-to-date figures increasing three percent to $323,520,420.