City sales tax up for fifth year in a row

Every penny counts. That’s certainly true for the City of New Rockford, which collected $388,536.66 in sales tax revenue last year, 3 percent more than in 2021.

According to information obtained from Auditor Becki Schumacher, the total sales tax revenue has increased each of the last five years, after dipping down a bit from 2015 to 2017.

Currently, one-half of 1 percent is used to pay off USDA debt for the water project, which has been collected since 2019.

The remaining 2 percent is divided up into several funds:

 •32 percent to improvements

 • 32 percent to economic development

 • 17 percent to the park board

 • 4 percent to the fire department

 • 15 percent to the general fund

Sales tax revenue from remote sellers also increased slightly in 2022, up from $46,550 in 2021 to $49,231. That means that residents of New Rockford spent nearly 6 percent more money, or a total of nearly $2 million ($1,969.240).

Statewide, counties and cities collected nearly $26 million ($25,786,910) in sales tax revenue from remote sellers in 2022 alone. That is an increase of nearly $5 million, from $21,923,619 in 2021.