Livingston Shared Sales Tax Revenue Exceeds Projections

Livingston has received just over $300,000 in shared sales tax revenue, almost doubling the estimated amount for the past fiscal year.

Downtown Revitalization Chariman Ray Evans said some of the funds will likely be used to pay for the city’s match for its sidewalk and courthouse projects.

“We though that we would have an abysmal year,” Evans said. “Apparently, the six months prior to that (the pandemic) and then a few months after, we just had incredible numbers with retail sales in Livingston.”

Evans said this return is the largest amount since the state started the program in about 13 years ago. Local governments do not have access to specific sales tax numbers for each business, but Evans said the Steel Coop and Winningham True Value Hardware both boomed during the pandemic.

“I think the highest we have ever received before was maybe $225,000,” Evans said. “We have been as low as 165, and we were actually expecting something in that range. We are just delighted to get a bit over 300,000.”

Six communities in total across the state participate in the revenue sharing program. Evans said each community has a central business area that gets to reinvest the money spent at its retailers.

“The state then rebates to the city five cents of the state’s seven and a half cent sales tax revenue for the cities to reinvest within the central business district,” Evans said.

The two TDOT grants the funds will be contributing to are updating the grounds of the courthouse and laying new ADA compliant sidewalks on East Main Street and East Broad Street.

Both projects moved to the next step this week with design plans coming closer to completion and opening for bids in the near future.