{"id":1320226,"date":"2020-05-27T18:37:45","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T00:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=996713"},"modified":"2020-05-27T18:37:45","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T00:37:45","slug":"glenwood-braces-for-worst-hopes-for-best-smaller-towns-see-silver-glimmer-in-grim-sales-tax-receipts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/glenwood-braces-for-worst-hopes-for-best-smaller-towns-see-silver-glimmer-in-grim-sales-tax-receipts\/","title":{"rendered":"Glenwood braces for worst, hopes for best; smaller towns see silver glimmer in grim sales tax receipts"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"345\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/10\/salestax-gpi-101417.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/10\/salestax-gpi-101417.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/10\/salestax-gpi-101417-150x83.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/10\/salestax-gpi-101417-325x181.jpg 325w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>It was a tale of different cities as first-quarter sales tax returns came in for Glenwood Springs, Carbondale and New Castle, but April\u2019s numbers are proving to be even more telling as to the economic impacts of a global pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Glenwood Springs saw a 6.7% drop in sales taxes through three months of the year, including a whopping 17.6% decrease in sales for March alone.<\/p>\n<p>But, it \u201ccould have been worse,\u201d said Steve Boyd, the city\u2019s chief operating officer, given that much of Glenwood\u2019s retail sales, restaurant and lodging activity came to a grinding halt in mid-March when the COVID-19 outbreak hit Colorado and businesses went into shutdown mode.<\/p>\n<p>Some receipts for April are still being collected, \u201cbut we think we\u2019ll be down around 35%\u201d for that month, Boyd said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row gspi-donation gspi-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe numbers are definitely not what we anticipated at the beginning of the year, and in March we basically hit the revised COVID forecast,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Glenwood Springs has already begun preparing for a \u201cworst-case\u201d 50% reduction in sales tax revenues for the year by enacting several <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/city-of-glenwood-springs-cuts-revenue-predictions-by-half-announces-budget-cuts-due-to-covid-19\/\">budget cuts<\/a>. Among them are pay cuts for city employees and worker furlough days every pay period for full-time employees, plus layoffs for most seasonal part-time workers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe hope it won\u2019t be that bad, and our target is to keep it at 20-25% (reduction) through the year,\u201d Boyd said.<\/p>\n<p>Neighboring New Castle and Carbondale, by contrast, saw the first quarter of the year start off strong \u2014 even when factoring in the second half of March.<\/p>\n<p>Carbondale sales were up 6.7% for the first three months of the year, and look to be down about 7.3% in April, Town Manager Jay Harrington said.<\/p>\n<p>New Castle actually saw its quarterly sales tax receipts come in 24% above the same three-month period last year through March, town Treasurer Loni Burk said.<\/p>\n<p>April numbers will not be known until mid-June, she said, \u201cso there is really no way to project that month accurately since it was the first full month of the shutdown,\u201d Burk said.<\/p>\n<p>For Carbondale, \u201cwe\u2019re projecting we will be 9% below budget,\u201d or 6% below 2019 sales taxes, Harrington said of the forecast for the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The separate recreation sales and use tax fund is projected end May 14.6% below budget, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re pretty grateful to be where we are financially,\u201d Harrington said. \u201cThere are segments that were hit really hard, including lodging, restaurants and bars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, retail sales have remained up, in part due to online collections, Harrington said. Retail food sales also were up even into April, as were liquor and marijuana sales, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Glenwood Springs did see some positive numbers in its first-quarter receipts, including stable sales in the general merchandise category, which includes Target and Walmart, a near 5.9% increase in miscellaneous retail sales, and a 10.9% increase in marijuana sales.<\/p>\n<p>However, apparel\/accessories saw a 13.6% drop compared to the first quarter of 2019, furniture\/home furnishings fell 26.1%, eating\/drinking establishments dropped 16.8% and food stores were off 6.9%.<\/p>\n<p>Boyd said he will approach City Council toward the end of June to reevaluate overall revenues, including sales taxes, and the recent budget reductions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have no plans right now to reduce the pay decreases,\u201d he said. \u201cThat would be the first thing we would restore, if numbers start to come in better than our worst-case scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"mailto:jstroud@postindependent.com\">jstroud@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/glenwood-braces-for-worst-hopes-for-best-smaller-towns-see-silver-glimmer-in-grim-sales-tax-receipts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was a tale of different cities as first-quarter sales tax returns came in for Glenwood Springs, Carbondale and New Castle, but April\u2019s numbers are proving to be even more telling as to the economic impacts of a global pandemic. Glenwood Springs saw a 6.7% drop in sales taxes through three months of the year, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1320226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 12:51:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1320226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1320226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1320226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1320226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}