MORE THAN A TAGLINE: ‘Buying local’ has kept taxes lower in 2017

Increased county sales tax revenue has aided municipalities, with benefits passed on to residents

By Jason Emerson

Editor

The push by Madison County officials that everyone “Buy Local” is more than just a tagline or an empty slogan — it works.

In 2017, nearly $2 million more was spent by consumers in Madison County than in 2016, which means that small businesses made more money, municipalities got more revenue and, perhaps most important to some people, the increased sales tax that was collected and redistributed back to the local towns and villages made everyone’s taxes a bit lower.

For the municipalities in the greater Cazenovia area, the increased sales tax revenues from the county has equated to more than $180,000 added to local budgets.

“We’re up over $2 million in sales tax revenue this year — and since we split it with towns and villages, it’s more money for them, and more money for the county,” said Madison County Administrator Mark Scimone. “Buy local: whether you are going out to eat, to get gas, to get coffee locally at a convenience store … that’s the biggest thing you can do. If you’re going out on a Friday night, instead of going to Onondaga County or Oneida County, stay local. Every little bit helps.”

Each year, Madison County officials tabulate how much money was spent in the county that year, then apportion a significant amount of that revenue out to the individual villages, towns and cities within the county based on each municipality’s assessed value. The higher the assessed value, the more county sales tax revenue they receive. At budget time, this money is counted as municipal revenue, which means the municipality has more money in its coffers, which means the tax rate for residents will be lower than if that amount of revenue did not exist.

The increase in county sales tax revenue received by the municipalities in the greater Cazenovia area — village and town of Cazenovia, towns of Nelson and Fenner — was substantial this year as compared to last year. The town of Cazenovia received approximately $76,000 more in revenue, Fenner received approximately $48,000 more while Nelson was up a little over $30,000. The village of Cazenovia, which is on a different budget schedule than the towns, does not have final county tax revenue figures yet for this year but, so far, the village is up more than $26,000, according to village figures.

So what does this mean, in layman’s terms? It means the Buy Local campaign is working — and the more people buy local the more it benefits the residents of Madison County.

Mayor Kurt Wheeler said the county sales tax revenue is a “critical factor” in meeting the budget and keeping property taxes as low as possible. “Buying local also helps your local businesses — often run by your friends and neighbors — and can help to create more local jobs, attracting new families to the area which helps maintain enrollment in our schools,” he said.

“It makes a big difference at the county level because we basically run the county on sales tax revenue … all the land taxes collected go to state mandates,” said Cazenovia Supervisor Bill Zupan. “If people bought all their gas in Madison County instead of in Onondaga County, for example, it would help Madison County quite a bit.”

Part of the increase in county revenue has to do with the local tourism, aided by the economic growth that has occurred — and two of the biggest factors are the Hampton Inn hotel and Empire Farm Brewery in Cazenovia, said both Fenner Town Supervisor David Jones, who sits on the county planning committee, and Scott Ingmire, Madison County Planning Department director.

“I know its definitely working because, being on the planning committee at county, I know our tourism is way up — part of that is things like the hotel in Caz and Open Farm Day. You’re bringing people in to buy local. … Not only does it help merchants in the towns and county, it helps all the property owners — it helps all the way around, it’s a savings for everybody,” said Jones. “In Fenner, we got almost $50,000 more in sales tax revenue this year; that makes a big difference.”

The Madison County Buy Local campaign started in 2014 to “promote local purchasing of goods and services, from visitors and residents alike, to improve local businesses and to generate sales tax revenue for Madison County and its municipalities,” according to the Buy Madison website. “When we all do this it really adds up: if each resident (over age 18) of Madison County kept $3.52 more of their purchases here a day it would add up to $1.5 million in additional annual revenue to use for local projects and programs and to help fund our community’s many great non-profits.”

The Buy Madison program kicked off with a promotional campaign, a new website and events like promoting local shopping through First Wednesday events. According to Ingmire, these strategies have worked well for the past three years, but the county is now looking to change the message in 2018 to keep it fresh.

“We thought maybe it’s time to take a different approach, breathe something new into it,” he said. “We have not fully decided yet on what we’ll do, but the general sense is to engage with chambers of commerce more around the county and … probably replace First Wednesday events with something new … larger events but less frequently.”

Ingmire said currently tax receipts for 2017 are up 5.18 percent over 2016.

“We certainly have appreciated community support for all the things we’ve done, and hopefully that carries through to 2018,” he said. “We tend to think about this more at certain times of the year, like Christmas, but we have always taken the standpoint that even small purchases done locally can have a big impact over the course of a year. Certainly, supporting small businesses is important, but the concept of just simply making purchases within the county has a big impact on sales tax as well.”

For more information on the Madison County Buy Local program, visit the website at madisoncounty.ny.gov/1933/Buy-Local.