Officials: Round Rock meeting or exceeding pre-pandemic revenue levels for fiscal year
The Round Rock economy has made a robust recovery with many revenue streams meeting or exceeding pre-pandemic sales levels, a city official said at Thursday’s City Council meeting.
While revenues exceeded conservative expectations for the fiscal year 2021 and city services largely stayed within budget, Round Rock Chief Financial Officer Susan Morgan said the city is monitoring concerns such as COVID-19, labor shortages and inflation that could affect recovery.
Round Rock collected $84.3 million in sales tax, almost $13 million over what it anticipated in July 2020 for this fiscal year. The extra money will go to financing infrastructure for the city.
“We are a heavily sales-tax-based city. And when people feel good about things, they buy stuff, and then that helps our revenue, so that's something that we pay very close attention to,” Morgan said. “It certainly dropped during the depths of the pandemic in Texas and nationally it's come roaring back, and we see that in our sales tax collections in our local economy.”
September’s 3.3% unemployment rate is reaching pre-pandemic levels when the city hovered at 3%. She said consumer confidence also rose sharply after September in Texas, which grew the city’s revenue highly dependent on sales taxes.
Moving into the fiscal year 2022, the city is preparing for cost increases spurred by inflation and labor needs, Morgan said. Next year’s budget will include additional funds for wages and salaries.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Officials say Round Rock continues to see economic recovery, growth
