Sales-tax revenue for state and local governments grew 2.1 percent in 2012, a modest gain compared to 2011, state records show.
For the critical fourth quarter that included Christmas, sales-tax revenue grew just 1.4 percent in 2012 compared to 2011, data from the state Taxation and Finance department show.
Total sales-tax revenue for the state and municipalities increased $525 million in 2012, from $24.9 billion to $25.4 billion.
Some counties said the growth in sales-tax collections were below expectations. Chemung County Executive Thomas Santulli said the county will end 2012 about $3.3 million short of what they had budgeted.
The county’s sales-tax revenue fell 1.84 percent between 2012 and 2011, the worst drop off in the state and one of only four counties to have negative growth. The others were Essex, Schuyler and Schoharie – all small rural counties.
Chemung County, located on the Pennsylvania border, had for several years led the state in sales-tax growth because of natural-gas drilling across the border. Declining demand for natural gas and the closure last month of a Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. plant has hurt the county, Santulli said.
“What a difference a year and half makes,” Santulli said. “We went from leading the state in sales-tax growth and room-tax growth and we missed our sales-tax budget number by $3.3 million” this year.
Sales-tax revenue is the largest revenue source for counties, more than property-tax revenue. In New York, most counties charge an 8 percent sales tax. The state gets 4 percent and local governments get the rest.
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Shale drilling, like other resource extraction industries, is notorious for its boom-bust economic cycle. Due to the volatility of the methane pricing and the relatively short life span of fracked shale wells, the boom period is shorter, so the bust comes more quickly. You see the effect in Chemung County with the added problem of losing Sikorsky from their traditional aviation sector.
The gas industry highly overstates the economic benefits of fracking to landowners and communities. After the short boom, the drop is precipitous.
Most workers on the construction of wells are from out of state. The few jobs given to maintain the wells will disappear when the well runs dry or when the demand disappears. The jobs are not so great, some companies do not offer health care benefits. Note that Jersey Shore Hospital in Pennsylvania reported its first loss in 5 years, partially due to gas workers without insurance using the hospital and being unable to pay for their care.
There are numerous instances of people and animals becoming ill when fracking wells show up near them. Groundwater is contaminated and excessive amounts of fresh water are used and thereafter undrinkable. Air is poisoned with greenhouse gas methane and radioactive radon. Land is decimated and its value takes a nosedive. Banks are known to refuse mortgages to land with fracking wells.
Is all this worth a few years of gas industry money? It is to them because they leave the devastated area and do nothing to clean up after themselves.
This is just another example of the boom and bust type of industry gas extraction does to communities, along with ruining our drinking water, our property values, our air and our health. If anyone wants to look at dollars and cents about this, what will the health issues be and the cost of that once air and water are tainted? Is there a study being done about that? Come on EPA come to this county and see what health costs have now risen. Not to mention that is an “unintended” spill happens, who gets to clean it up? The people living in the town. WE MUST CHANGE DICK CHENEY’S LAW EXEMPTING THE GAS COMPANIES FROM THE CLEAN AIR AND CLEAN WATER ACT.
There are also numerous examples of people growing ill when hysterical anti-science, anti-technology Luddites show up, bloviating about the imagined downside to developing our natural gas resources. Interesting that no one has yet mentioned one of the biggest negative outcomes for Chemung County – the loss of jobs because job destroying libtards have pushed the gas industry away from NY. For instance, Talisman recently moved their U.S. HQ from Chemung County to near Pittsburgh, PA because of the ongoing abusive tactices of NY.