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City staff says state found erroneous Dick’s Sporting Goods tax payments; EDC’s conservative exposure ~$141,655
Summary
City staff told the Friendswood Downtown EDC that the Texas comptroller has identified sales‑tax payments from Dick’s Sporting Goods that were incorrectly routed to Friendswood; an initial conservative estimate of the EDC portion is $141,655, with final accounting pending.
City staff informed the Friendswood Downtown Economic Development Corporation on July 14 that the Texas state comptroller has identified sales‑tax payments for Dick’s Sporting Goods that were erroneously routed to the City of Friendswood and associated local funds over multiple years.
“Even with city staff pointing out [the error] twice over the last few years… the state of Texas has finally figured it out on their end, although they can’t tell us exactly how much money is owed yet,” Steven said. He told the board that a conservative estimate of what would be due back from the EDC’s share is $141,655 and that the misapplied payments have affected multiple local accounts — including the EDC and the street‑maintenance sales tax — because the error spanned several years and included online sales.
Steven said finance has not yet finalized the full reconciliation and that the city will bring back a formal accounting and any required adjustments when the state provides the final figures. He urged the board to hold off on adjusting prior financials until the exact statewide calculation is available, and staff added the city has new software designed to detect such anomalies sooner.
The board did not take an immediate action on the matter at the July 14 meeting. Steven said staff will return with the final amount and any recommended bookkeeping steps to remove the erroneous receipts from city and EDC accounts.
