St. Johns County school sales tax revenue nears $4M in first three months

charter-schools-2-Large-e1440154952917

After three months of a half-cent sales tax passed to ensure the ongoing quality of St. Johns County schools, the trend is clear.

Revenue is surging, month over month, a trend apparently driven in large part by tourism.

March saw $1,537,660 collected, money that will go to much-needed capital projects for schools in the fast-growing county directly to the south of Jacksonville.

January brought $1,124,769 into county coffers, and February’s total of $1,255,759 was stronger than that.

All told, $3,918,188 has been collected; that nearly $4 million is trending favorably compared to the original projections of $13 million a year in new revenue.

Beth Sweeny, governmental relations coordinator for the St. Johns County School District, said she was “pleasantly surprised” by the “encouraging trend” of revenue uptick from the county’s half-cent school sales tax that went into effect in January.

Expectations were that January and February would be slower months,a great deal of the month-to-month flux is driven by tourist patterns. It was estimated that 40 percent of collections, in aggregate, are from tourism.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has written for FloridaPolitics.com since 2014. He is based in Northeast Florida. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski



#FlaPol

Florida Politics is a statewide, new media platform covering campaigns, elections, government, policy, and lobbying in Florida. This platform and all of its content are owned by Extensive Enterprises Media.

Publisher: Peter Schorsch @PeterSchorschFL

Contributors & reporters: Phil Ammann, Drew Dixon, Roseanne Dunkelberger, A.G. Gancarski, Anne Geggis, Ryan Nicol, Jacob Ogles, Cole Pepper, Gray Rohrer, Jesse Scheckner, Christine Sexton, Drew Wilson, and Mike Wright.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @PeterSchorschFL
Phone: (727) 642-3162
Address: 204 37th Avenue North #182
St. Petersburg, Florida 33704




Sign up for Sunburn


Categories