City sales tax, restaurant business show positive growth

City sales and entertainment tax revenue saw a surprising uptick in the most recent financial report.

Sales tax revenue in the October report, which mostly represents sales in September, was up 7.4 percent month over month.

“We grew off a negative month the prior year, so we did have room to grow,” director of finance Shawn Pritchett told the Sioux Falls City Council on Tuesday.

Still, restaurants were up 7 percent, construction “was a big driver, up 40 percent,” he continued. “Remote sales are still very robust, up 30 percent, and business services up 15 percent.”

The city is tracking at 2.6 percent sales tax growth on a year-over-year basis, compared with ending last year up 1.5 percent.

“We are trending better than we were last year,” Pritchett said.

The entertainment tax also had a good month, up 7.2 percent to bring it flat for the year.

“We’re very cautious about some of the discretionary income for people, but restaurants were up 7 percent, and liquor stores were up 24 percent, so the entertainment tax, I’d say surprisingly, had a strong month.”

The lodging tax continued to lag slightly behind last year.

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