The City of Laurel will end its fiscal year on September 30th and will set records for both sales and tourism taxes collected.
For the first time in its history, the city collected over $10 million in sales tax reimbursements from the state. The city collected $10,085,424. These funds go in to the General Fund of the city which is used to fund police, fire, public works, and many other facets of city operations.
Sales tax collections account for almost 60% of our general fund budget. These sales taxes come from the people who generously spend their dollars in shopping in the city. We appreciate the continued support of our citizens and visitors to our local community.
Additionally, we set records in our Tourism Tax, which is the two cents that is added to hotels and restaurants. This year for the first time, we collected in excess of $2 million dollars. We collected a total of $2,088,279. This comes from visitors and residents who eat in our restaurants and stay in our hotels.
Without the support of our visitors and local shoppers, this could not be possible. The majority of these funds go to support the Sportsplex and other sports activities in the city and to partially fund the Magnolia Center located at the South MS State Fairgrounds.
These two funds are growing and will be used to make our city the kind of place that we all want to live, work, worship, and visit.
