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October 2020 and October 2021: Midland sees big sales tax decrease

Thanks to a roughly $2 million adjustment in 2020, Midland saw its sales tax drop off in 2021.

MIDLAND, Texas — The city of Midland reports its sales tax figures monthly, but one big difference in sales tax numbers for the month of October in 2020 and 2021 is how much of an adjustment there was in 2020. It was a gain of roughly $2 million. In 2021, it was a loss of about $5,000.

Christy Weakland, Midland's comptroller and interim director of finance, has never seen an adjustment that big since she's been in her position.

She said that if you take last year's and this year's October adjustments, that this year would have looked better than last year.

"This was a very unusual situation last October. So if you were to take this adjustment out, our amount would’ve been 3.1 million last October. This October is 3.8 million, so we would have increased just as the other cities around us have increased. So we are actually doing way better this October at our sales tax," Weakland said.

However, the Texas state comptroller is the one that has a say in these adjustments.

"Basically, the amount for last year was inflated due to this adjustment, and these adjustments are made routinely by the Texas state comptroller due to internal audits and adjustments that they have to make," Weakland said.

However, COVID-19 still had a major impact all over during last October, and the adjustment was very much needed and appreciated.

"Especially in October 2020, they were still a lot semi-shut down. They was still a lot of concern about COVID, so we were very glad to get this unexpected amount in October 2020. Of course, it’s going to help our bottom line," Weakland said.

The goal for the city of Midland is to $51 million in sales tax so that the money can be used for the general fund to help basic city operations including assisting police, fire, and other city needs.

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