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County finance director: auditor's office revenues tracking but timing lags complicate year-to-date picture
Summary
Cowlitz County finance staff told commissioners that sales tax is the auditor’s largest single revenue source and that timing of receipts and accounting accruals makes early-year comparisons misleading. Staff also reviewed property-tax collection, intergovernmental revenue from the PUD privilege tax, and personnel and miscellaneous variances.
Cowlitz County Finance Director Kathy Funk Baxter told commissioners Monday that the auditor’s office’s largest revenue source is sales tax, budgeted this year at $11,530,600, and that timing and accrual rules mean only a limited number of 2025 sales-tax receipts are included in the year-to-date totals.
The auditor’s office “has sales tax revenue as the number 1 item,” Funk Baxter said during the county’s budget review session. She and auditor staff cautioned that January and February receipts are often booked back to the prior year and that, for the report presented, only March and April collections were posted for 2025.
That timing created an appearance of being below target on a simple year-to-date comparison even though staff said the…
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