Bridge City, Pinehurst end year with stagnant sales taxes

As 2023 comes to a close, most of the public entities with sales taxes have income staying above the inflation rate, but Bridge City and Pinehurst have had stagnant returns.

The Texas Comptroller's Office has sent the cities, county, and one special district the sales taxes for sales in the month of October and has calculated the 12 months of sales taxes paid to the entities.

Orange ended up with a whopping 28.9 percent end of the year increase from 2022, while Bridge City saw year's increase at less than 1 percent. Pinehurst had a slight decrease of 1.3 percent. The U.S. Department of Commerce reports the October inflation rate at 3.2 percent.

Other entities, including Orange County, have 12 months of sales tax payments remaining above the inflation rate.

The payments and end of the year totals follow.

Bridge City has a 1.5 percent sales tax and collected $166,276 for October this year. That was a decrease of 4.24 percent from the amount of $173,654 for October 2022. The city now has collected $2.24 million for the year, a slight increase from the $2.235 last year.

Pinehurst has a 1.5 percent sales tax rate. The city has $52,445 of income from sales taxes in October this year, compared to $173,654 last year, a decrease 4.69 percent. The city ended the year with a total of $665,500, a 1.34 percent decrease from $674,582 last year.

Orange has a 1.5 percent sales tax and was down for the month of October by 4.47 percent. The city had $40,011 for October this year, compared to $460,614 last year. However, the city ended the year, seeing more than $2 million extra in the city income. The city collected $9.33 million in 2023, compared to $7.23 million last year, an increase of 28.9 percent.

West Orange has a 1.25 percent sales tax and collected $110,227 for October, down from $111,910 in October 2022, a decrease of 1.5 percent. The city collected a total of $1.45 million this year, up 6.57 percent from the $1.36 million in 2022.

Vidor has a 1.5 percent sales tax and had $274,428 for October this year, an increase of 3.68 percent from $264,663 last year. The city in 2023 collected a total of $3.77 million, up 6.38 percent from the $3.54 million in 2022.

Orange County has a sales tax rate of 0.5 percent, or a half-cent per dollar. The county dropped for the month of October, but was up for the whole year. The county collected $521,428 for October 2023, a drop of nearly 13 percent from $599,185 last year. The year was up 7.75 percent from last year with $8 million total collected, up from $7.29 million last year.

The Little Cypress Fire and Rescue Department is the Orange County Emergency Services District No. 3 and is the only special district in the county with a sales tax, which was approved by voters. For October, the district collected $25,222, down from $26,688 for October 2022. The district was up 13.41 percent for the year with $399,734, an increase from the $299,543 last year.