BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

MASSENA — Sales tax collections look good in the Village of Massena.

Treasurer Kevin Felt told trustees Tuesday that the village is expected to see sales tax collections numbers in August up by 33 percent, which equates to about $150,000.

Massena isn’t alone.

St. Lawrence County is up about $4 million or 27 percent on sales tax compared to 2019.

Ogdensburg City Manager Stephen Jellie also reported a significant increase in sales tax projections at a recent meeting, though he was cautious in planning a budget with similar revenues in the future.

Trustees in Massena were pleased with the news, but said the increased tax revenues are likely due to the federal stimulus funds which have been issued to families, businesses and local governments to aid with recovery from COVID-19 related shutdowns.

While the trend is nice and expected to continue this year, there is no guarantee that sales tax revenues will remain as high in 2022.

The trend is also being noticed statewide. In May the state comptroller’s office noted that sales tax collections increased by 57.8 percent over the same month in 2020, the highest one month increase in recent history.

The growth in monthly local sales taxes reflects the fact that collections in last year were especially low during the worst part of the first wave of the pandemic, when they declined by 32.3 percent statewide.

However, collections have been relatively strong even compared to pre-pandemic numbers according to the comptroller.