
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 24, 1994                   TAG: 9405240076
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ROANOKE SALES TAX YIELDS EXTRA $600,000

Roanoke's sales tax collections over the past 10 months are up more than 9 percent from a year ago - and the city's finance director is looking forward to as much as $600,000 in extra revenue for the current budget year.

"I think the recession is over," Finance Director James Grisso told City Council Monday. "It's over in the Roanoke Valley."

Not only are sales tax revenues up over last year's, Grisso said, but they're also running 5 percent over the projections city officials had built into this year's budget. They had projected just under $12.9 million in sales tax revenues, but now Grisso expects the figure may approach $13.5 million for the current budget year, which ends June 30.

That would leave more money for unfunded needs. Grisso won't call the extra money a "surplus," however, because that implies it's money the city doesn't really need. The city needs every penny it can get, he said.

Typically, unexpected revenues are spent on capital projects such as roof repairs or buying new police cars. The extra $600,000 would be a small percentage of the overall budget, council member William White said, "but it's still a lot of money."

Consumers who buy retail goods in the city pay a state sales tax of 3.5 percent plus a local sales tax of 1 percent. Restaurant patrons also pay a 4 percent city meals tax on top of that.

Grisso said meal tax revenues are running about 6 percent higher than last year's. "Our residents are eating out," Grisso said. "Tourists are eating out."

The sales and meals taxes "are both good barometers of the economy," he said.

by CNB