Another favorite local blog of mine is ‘The Ruminations of OLDnFEEBLE‘; ONF focuses on Terrell and the politicians that represent it, all the way from the Terrell City Council up to our local congressmen and even the president and presidential candidates. I loved his post back in January about Mitt Romney’s plan to put ‘old folks’ to work; he writes about serious political topics with an engaging, witty style.

Each month, the Comptroller’s office releases a report of the sales tax receipts for that month, and each month, ONF compares the current numbers to the same month in the previous year, and produces a chart showing how much sales tax revenue is growing in Terrell, in Forney, in Kaufman County and throughout the State of Texas. He posted the March report yesterday, which shows a 24% increase in sales tax receipts in Forney compared to March ‘07. Terrell saw an increase of 7%, while the Kaufman County and State-wide averages were around a 9-10% increase.

Forney remains above average when comparing year-to-date 2008 to year-to-date 2007, as well. Forney has seen a 10% increase in sales tax receipts, compared to a 7% State-wide average. This comes after a disappointing report for Forney in February, so this is encouraging news, especially considering the current wide-spread concern about the US economy.

The Comptroller’s office reports that there was over $116 million in taxable sales within the City of Forney in the 12 months ending in June 2007, the most recent annual statistics which are available. A 20PM analysis of the sales tax reports shows that approximately 37% of Forney’s sales tax revenue comes from a handful of manufacturers located within city limits; 20% comes from wholesale trade and 37% comes from retail sales.

I’ve created a topic for discussion of this post in the Forney discussion forums, click here to visit it and share your thoughts on our local (and national) economy!