Sales tax collections began 2015 with gains

Retail sales in Ouachita Parish, the commercial hub of the region, began 2015 the same way they closed out 2014 — up.

Though overall combined sales tax collections from January didn’t match the dramatic gains of December, January’s 2.8 percent increase over the same period in 2014 are encouraging, economist Bob Eisenstadt said.

“This gain is ahead of inflation and still puts us on a pace for steady, persistent overall economic growth,” said Eisenstadt, director of the University of Louisiana at Monroe’s Center for Business and Economic Research.

Eisenstadt said he had feared December’s 15 percent increase in collections may have pulled sales from the new year, but that wasn’t the case.

“I was afraid there would be some pullback,” he said. “And while there was because the gains weren’t as remarkable as December’s, I attribute that more to the tailing off of residual sales of building materials from the tornado in October.”

The city of West Monroe did enjoy a double digit gain, 10.5 percent, in December, while the city of Monroe posted a 3.5 percent gain after a one-month record high in collections in December.

“We had a strong January,” said Jake Wilson, manager of Pecanland Mall in Monroe, the largest collection of retailers in the market. “You always like to start the year in the right direction. And I think as we continue to see job growth in the market we can be optimistic that these gains are sustainable.”

Tourism numbers also remained strong with the collections for the hotel-motel tax increasing 16.8 percent in January.

“Our overall hotel occupancy rate in 2014 was 72 percent, the highest ever,” said Alana Cooper, executive director of the Monroe-West Monroe Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Sustaining that kind of increase might be difficult, but we do have good activity in the market in both tourism and business travel.”

But collections for the Police Jury fell 6.6 percent in January, while collections for the town of Sterlington fell 13.4 percent.

Follow Greg Hilburn on Twitter @GregHilburn1