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Aurora reports 3% drop in August sales tax collections, staff cites a strong August 2024 baseline
Summary
City budget staff reported August 2025 sales tax collections of $25.2 million, about 3% below August 2024; variable sales tax and nine of 15 sectors showed declines, while staff stressed last year's unusually large one-time payments made comparisons difficult.
Bill Levine, budget office analyst for the city of Aurora, reported to the committee that August 2025 sales tax collections totaled $25,200,000, about $800,000 (roughly 3%) less than what the city collected in August 2024.
Levine said the comparison is skewed by an unusually strong August 2024 that included large one-time business-to-business payments and a particularly high utilities month. "If you look a year back to August 2024 ... we had about a 75% increase in August 2024," Levine said, adding that heightened utility collections likely reflected a very hot summer and higher energy prices.
Levine identified two areas of concern: variable sales tax, which fell by roughly $225,000 (about a 17% decline year over year), and that nine of 15 sectors showed declines in August 2025. He emphasized that while the month was down from an unusually high prior-year month, the result did not signal a uniformly poor performance across the year.
Council members asked follow-up questions about online sales and utility collections. Levine said he does track online sales separately in his own analysis (rolling several online sellers into a distinct group) but does not treat "online" as a formal sector in the city's sector reporting. Levine said he could provide a breakdown of online sales by category on request.
On utilities, Council member Coombs asked whether the decline in total utility sales despite higher rates indicated lower consumption. Levine said he could report what the city collected but did not have the detailed utility-level returns to parse whether the decline was driven by lower volume, rate changes, or both; he offered to provide year-to-date figures that might present a different picture.
The presentation concluded with Levine offering to follow up with the council on requested breakdowns.
Ending: Staff did not propose formal policy changes at the meeting; council members asked for further data from the budget office on online sales categories and utility volumes to inform future discussions.
