The Erie County Department of Budget and Management today announced the preliminary findings of the budget monitoring report (“BMR”) for June 2018, which indicated strong growth of 6.73 percent in sales tax for the second fiscal quarter of the year and also showed an accompanying positive variance of $9,623,893 for June year-to-date. By comparison, the June 2017 BMR indicated an unfavorable variance of $7,031,420, which results in county government’s current financial position being dramatically better than the negative variance position at this time last year.

The 6.73 percent in sales tax growth for the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2018 represents the best quarterly growth since 2008, a figure being applauded by Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz.

“The budget monitoring report for June is a positive development for Erie County and continues to follow my administration’s strategic budgeting and scrutiny of county finances. We work tirelessly to provide realistic estimates of sales tax growth because it is a very important part of how we form the annual county budget. A healthy increase in sales tax receipts of nearly 6.8 percent represents a figure that is above our initial estimates, which we gladly welcome,” said Poloncarz. “The overall positive variance reported by the Budget Department, of which that sales tax growth is a major part, is also something that should be applauded by anyone who likes to see their local levels of government consistently keep an eye on the bottom line. Continued savings in Erie County Medicaid costs and fringe benefits combined with that greater than expected sales tax growth has us feeling confident about our approach to maintaining a conservative county budget and strongly reaffirms our close stewardship of Erie County’s finances.”

Monthly budget monitoring reports are required by the Erie County Code and are submitted to the Erie County Legislature and Comptroller. They are available for review to the general public by clicking here.