The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
While the sales tax revenue giants of Stanislaus County – Modesto and Turlock – are expecting significant reductions in sales tax revenue stemming from COVID stay-at-home orders since March 2020, Ceres city officials only expect mild decreases. That’s because Ceres has a smaller reliance on sales to meet budget demands than do the two larger neighbors.
“I’m hoping that it’s a minimal impact,” said Ceres City Manager Tom Westbrook. “When you look at Ceres as a whole, we don’t have a lot of those large sales tax generators, like the city of Modesto has the mall, which was significantly impacted; and the city of Turlock has Monte Vista Crossings. We’re kind of, hey, we’ve got some services, we’ve got some goods, we’re just kind of rolling along and so we didn’t feel the pinch that maybe those larger cities did.”
The city of Ceres showed minimal decreases in sales tax revenue for March, April, May and June of COVID. Westbrook said, in fact, that sales tax and Measure H public safety sales tax revenues came in slightly above what was projected because of the conservative approach.
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