Taxable sales from the Mitchell ZIP code tumbled 6.1 percent in December as compared to the same month a year earlier, and taxable sales statewide fell 2.6 percent.
The new numbers, released this week from the state Department of Revenue and Regulation, put a blemish on an otherwise positive calendar year of taxable sales growth. Despite the December fall-off, Mitchell ended 2008 with a 9 percent increase in taxable sales over 2007, and taxable sales statewide increased by 6.7 percent for the year.
"Clearly, 2008 ended on a sour note," said Bryan Hisel, executive director of the Mitchell Area Chamber of Commerce, "but the year overall was a solid year for us. That's pretty spectacular growth in terms of the sales and service economy itself."
Hisel said the December taxable sales report reflects sales from November. Taxable sales during the all-important December Christmas rush will be reflected in the January report, which will be released next month.
"Taxable sales" are the transactions from which the state and city governments can draw sales and use taxes. The state and cities depend on sales taxes to fund large portions of their budgets.
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Marilyn Wilson, the city of Mitchell's finance officer, said Thursday she had not yet received all of the city's sales tax receipts for December. Through November, the city's collections were still up 3.5 percent over the previous year, which was higher than the city's budget forecast of 1.5 percent.
Gov. Mike Rounds said Tuesday during his State of the State address that the state's sales-tax collections for December were 2.1 percent less than the same month the previous year. It was the first month in two decades that the state collected less sales tax than it had a year before, he said.
Hisel said the December taxable sales numbers were not surprising, given the wave of negative economic news that has afflicted the nation for several months. He's still hopeful that Mitchell's next taxable sales report, for December sales reported in January, will be "steady." That hope is based on anecdotal reports from local retailers, he said.
"The weather was impacting things both positively and negatively. It took away a couple days of shopping on weekends because of storms, and yet threatening weather meant people kind of stayed closer to home."
Some retailers were experiencing record years in 2008, Hisel said, until the national markets began to collapse and impact consumer psyches.
"Our state was on a pretty good track," he said. "It's 2009 that is ahead of us, and the future will unfold as we move forward."
Mitchell ended 2008 with $476.4 million in total taxable sales, which was nearly $40 million more than the 2007 total of $437.159 million. Brookings was the only city among the state's largest 10 that experienced a decrease in taxable sales in 2008.
Statewide taxable sales totaled $16.676 billion in 2008 and $15.630 billion in 2007.
