By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson City Manager Jeff Cantrell said Wednesday that certain sectors of the economy drove the strength of tax collections announced this week.
"Motor vehicles came in higher," Cantrell said. "Also electronics and appliances, also building materials from presumably large, local do-it-yourself stores. Also, food and beverage and liquor sales. Because that's categorized as food and beverage and liquor all in one and a lot of the restaurants were down initially, I'm going to guess a lot of that actually was liquor."
Also, sporting goods and hobby stores and general merchandise were up.
"Incentives that were out on motor vehicles were compelling," Cantrell said. "I suspect they played a part in increased volume of sales. I don't know that the same level of profit was there for local dealers. That doesn't become very representative in our numbers, because even with slight discounting given on a vehicle, the majority of the sale still gets tax and we still benefit from that as a taxing entity."
Given that people are fixing up their houses and buying different cars, it's likely those are not repeat purchases.
"We don't believe that it's likely that everyone that recently purchased a vehicle will do that on an annually reoccurring basis. The same with a kitchen remodel or a deck construction project. We anticipate that it will likely fall off, that we're still seeing what I would likely describe as an anomaly."
The City is still looking at trimming its budget back for the coming year in anticipation of a rollback later in 2020.