Local sales tax revenues were strong in the first quarter of 2020, but the impact of COVID-19 is showing a significant decline for the month of April.

Monroe County sales tax revenues for last month are now off by nearly 25 percent.

“When you shut down whole sections of the economy like this, the first place we’re going to look for revenue reductions is in the sales tax,” said Monroe County Executive Adam Bello (D).

Local governments rely on the sales tax revenues to help balance budgets. The town of Irondequoit factors in $5 million to help cover annual costs.

"We are monitoring it very closely," said Irondequoit town supervisor David Seeley (D)."We’ve already made some midyear budget revisions; we know we’re going to have a revenue shortfall, so I asked each department to find savings. We have a hiring freeze and we’re going to have to make some cuts but targeting cuts to make sure we have a balanced budget at the end of the year."

In Greece, where they recently had to lay off more than a dozen part-time employees, the town supervisor takes a conservative approach when it comes to budgeting.

“We still have reserve funds," said Greece town supervisor Bill Reilich (R). "That’s why we have reserve funds for these types of events. I’m also a believer…I’m an optimistic guy. I believe that when we fully open up, the people that have been waiting to buy cars will buy them, the people that are waiting to get the washing machine will buy it.” 

As town leaders discuss ways to handle the shortfalls, the key question moving forward remains — have we hit the bottom or will we continue to see a decrease in sales tax revenues?

“Our finance team has been meeting continuously over the last several weeks," said County Executive Bello. "We met with our auditors. We’re putting, now that we have some data, we can update what those projections are.” 

As more businesses reopen, the hope is that the economic outlook will improve in Monroe County.