PANAMA CITY BEACH —The city’s primary revenue sources that are tied to purchased goods and building permits continue to increase, and never nosedived like many other cities during the Great Recession.
Total key revenue accounts — which comprise eight of the city’s largest revenue sources — were $12.8 million in fiscal year 2009-2010, compared to $16.8 million in fiscal year 2013-2014. According to Investopia.com, the recession lasted from December 2007 to June 2009.
Included in this number are business tax receipts, which is a tax on purchased goods that is the biggest revenue source for the general fund. These funds have increased from $5.78 million in fiscal year 2009-2010 to $8.72 million in fiscal year 2013-2014.
Despite a lagging economy, revenues from Panama City Beach’s 1 percent local business tax have risen 40 percent since 2006.
Panama City Beach is one of only a handful of Florida municipalities that collect a business tax. Even more rare, the city does not levy a property tax.
The spike in the business tax receipts is not a surprise to Leslie Brown, who owns Blue Heron Fine Gifts at 11260 Back Beach Road. She said her retail gift gallery, which sells many handcrafted gifts made by artists, has seen an increase in her business in recent years, as well.
“Our business has only been here four years,” she said. “We opened when the economy was not all that great, and the oil spill” was occurring. “There has definitely been an upswing in business. I’m not surprised at the numbers. I think more people are at the beach.”
City Clerk Holly White said during the recession Panama City Beach’s revenues were trending upward.
“We didn’t seem to feel the huge negative ramifications,” she said. Even when the national economy dropped like it did, Panama City Beach stayed relatively flat in its generation of revenue, she said.
“We didn’t have those big dips,” she said. “And I think it’s because we have no real estate taxes levied on the Beach. For a lot of communities, their big source of revenue was real estate taxes, and when the housing market dropped, they saw a huge reduction in their revenues. But we’ve never had them to start with, and our other revenues remained relatively stable and now in the last four or five years have gone up.”
City Manager Mario Gisbert said even during the recession, people wanted to have a vacation, and Panama City Beach made sense for many of them.
“The fact you can have pretty simple, cost-effective vacations here brings a lot of people here,” he said. “Plus, we’re actually growing events, so every time we add an event it helps offset decreases” in revenues.
Building permits: Other positive economic news can be found in building permit revenues, which have made a comeback after being flat from fiscal year 2009-2010 to fiscal year 2011-2012.
In fiscal year 2009-2010, building permits generated $139,908. In fiscal year 2010-2011, they added up to $192,432. In fiscal year 2011-2012, they were $248,918. Gisbert said these numbers clearly reflected the recession.
But in fiscal year 2012-2013, building permit revenues jumped to $452,231 and they are only slightly down this fiscal year, at $415,835.
“Certainly we’re climbing out of the recession,” Gisbert said. “The whole nation is climbing out of the recession.”
The half-cent sales tax revenue the city receives from the state has increased each of the last five fiscal years, from $889,795 in fiscal year 2009-2010 to $992,824 in fiscal year 2013-2014.
The city’s portion of state revenue sharing increased during the last five fiscal years, from $186,341 in fiscal year 2009-2010 to $227,449 in fiscal year 2013-2014.
Utility taxes on electricity have increased from $2.2 million in fiscal year 2009-2010 to $2.4 million this past fiscal year.
Franchise fees for electricity have increased from $2.3 million in 2009-2010 to $2.4 million this past fiscal year.
Only a few of the city’s revenue sources have declined slightly in the last five years. Local communications services taxes exceeded $1 million in fiscal year 2012-2013, but declined by $112,131 this past fiscal year. Local-option fuel tax revenues have decreased from $205,619 in 2009-2010 to $190,960 this past fiscal year.