{
    "archive_path": "archive/1789769024.0239",
    "base_url": "cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals",
    "basename": "",
    "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-18 22:03",
    "canonical": {
        "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals",
        "dom_path": "output.html",
        "favicon_path": "favicon.ico",
        "git_path": "git/",
        "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=cdispatch.com",
        "headers_path": "headers.json",
        "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt",
        "index_path": "index.html",
        "media_path": "media/",
        "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html",
        "pdf_path": "output.pdf",
        "readability_path": "readability/content.html",
        "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png",
        "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html",
        "warc_path": "warc/",
        "wget_path": "cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/index.html"
    },
    "domain": "cdispatch.com",
    "extension": "",
    "hash": "1S9NQNFW41FC2YTYPJDA",
    "history": {
        "archive_org": [],
        "dom": [],
        "favicon": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "curl",
                    "--silent",
                    "--location",
                    "--compressed",
                    "--max-time",
                    "120",
                    "--output",
                    "favicon.ico",
                    "--user-agent",
                    "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                    "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=cdispatch.com"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                "end_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:21.960940+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "favicon.ico",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1789769024.0239",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:21.407197+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ],
        "git": [],
        "headers": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "curl",
                    "--silent",
                    "--location",
                    "--compressed",
                    "--head",
                    "--max-time",
                    "120",
                    "--user-agent",
                    "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                    "https://cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                "end_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:22.296531+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "headers.json",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1789769024.0239",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:21.968576+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ],
        "htmltotext": [],
        "media": [],
        "mercury": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js",
                    "https://cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "1.0.0",
                "end_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:33.276676+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "mercury",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1789769024.0239",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:29.971948+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ],
        "pdf": [],
        "readability": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor",
                    "/tmp/tmpwbgdhrpr",
                    "https://cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "0.0.11",
                "end_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:29.956926+00:00",
                "index_texts": [
                    "Both Starkville and Columbus missed their projected sales tax budgets for this fiscal year by less than $50,000.\nStarkville finished FY 2026 with about $10.31 million in general sales tax collections, falling about $35,000 short of its $10.35 million projected budget. The city saw less than 1% growth in general sales tax collections for this fiscal year.\nMeanwhile, Columbus\u2019 collection grew by 3.07% over that same time frame, but the city still fell just short of its $12 million projection by about $24,000.\nSales tax diversions run on a three-month cycle. Taxes are collected by retailers in the first month, sent to the Mississippi Department of Revenue the next and then disbursed to cities and counties the third. Therefore, September reported collections reflect sales from July.\nColumbus\nColumbus collected $11,976,012.94 in sales tax diversion this fiscal year, up 3.07% from last year\u2019s collections of $11,619,514.38. This still left the city $23,987.06 short of its $12 million projected sales tax budget.\nDespite falling just shy of this year\u2019s sales tax goal, the city is projecting about $12.5 million in sales tax collections for FY 2027, an expected increase of about 4.37%.\nWard 6 Councilman Jason Spears, who chairs the city\u2019s finance committee, defended the higher projection to city council on Tuesday. He said that jump accounts for continued consumption in the city with increased prices.\nThe city collected $988,288.13 in sales tax diversions this month, down 6.95% from August ($1,062,110.09). This also marks a 5.86% increase from last September\u2019s collections of $933,556.\nCollections of the city\u2019s restaurant and lounge tax outpaced FY 2025 collections by just more than 10%, while the city\u2019s hotel/motel tax fell by 1.19%.\nThe city collected $2,882,886.63 in restaurant and lounge tax diversions this year, up 10.16% compared to FY 2025 collections of $2,617,022.92.\nThis month, the restaurant and lounge tax brought in $250,520.84, an 8.79% increase compared to last month\u2019s collections of $230,271.67. This marks a 12.03% increase from September 2025 collections of $223,625.\nThe city\u2019s hotel/motel tax brought in $464,380.95 this fiscal year, a 1.19% decrease from FY 2025 collections of $469,975.51.\nThis month, the hotel/motel tax brought in $32,672.80, a 14.88% increase from last month ($28,442.03). This marks a 0.65% increase from September 2025 collections of $32,461.\nStarkville\nStarkville brought in $10,314,447 from general sales tax diversions this fiscal year, up by only 0.98% from last year ($10,214,504). The city missed its projected sales tax budget of $10.35 million by about $35,523.\nBudget Chair and Ward 2 Alderwoman Sandra Sistrunk said the city had a hard time projecting this year\u2019s budget due to audit adjustments made by the state Department of Revenue last year that skewed collections. The adjustment was reflected in June 2025 collections, when the city reported more than $1.1 million in sales tax diversions.\nSistrunk told The Dispatch the city is still not sure how much additional revenue was generated in that month\u2019s collection due to the audit adjustment, but estimated it was between $200,000 and $300,000.\nAn audit adjustment happens when MDOR corrects a taxpayer\u2019s return after reviewing its records.\nGoing into FY 2027, the city does not need to account for that adjustment and is projecting $10,608,750 from revenue from general sales tax diversions, a 2.85% increase. Sistrunk believes the projected growth estimate is fair because it is close to what growth would have been this year without the adjustment last year.\n\u201cWe look at our overall trajectory (and) we made a best guess of what we thought the anomaly was, and we just settled on that number based on trends we\u2019re seeing,\u201d Sistrunk told The Dispatch. \u201cAre we right? I can maybe tell you this time next year.\u201d\nIn previous years, Starkville has reliably predicted at least 3% in growth from general sales tax collections, but Sistrunk said sales tax growth is slowing in the city.\n\u201cI don\u2019t have an explanation for you there, in terms of whether that is a change in consumer behavior, and they\u2019re just buying more stuff off the internet,\u201d Sistrunk said. \u201c\u2026 Or if it is a broader reflection of the economy and people don\u2019t have more money to spend, they\u2019ve still just got the same amount of money to spend, so the growth is not there.\u201d\nThe city collected $794,007 in sales tax diversions this month, down 4.09% from August collections of $827,902. This also marks a 15.92% increase from September 2025 collections of $684,935.\nEnd-of-fiscal-year collections of the city\u2019s restaurant sales tax diversions and its tourism sales tax outpaced FY 2025 collections by just more than 4%.\nStarkville generated $3,307,675 in restaurant sales tax diversions this fiscal year, up 4.36% from FY 2025 collections of $3,169,369.\nThe city brought in $236,042 from restaurant sales tax diversion this month, a 1.89% decrease from last month\u2019s collections ($240,587). This marks a 2.99% increase from last September\u2019s collections of $229,179.\nStarkville\u2019s tourism tax generated $1,901,313 this fiscal year, up 4.15% from FY 2025 collections (1,825,550).\nThis month, the city collected $136,076, down 3.46% from August ($140,947). Collections are up by 2.92% from this time last year ($132,209).\nWest Point\nWest Point began its fiscal year July 1.\nThree months in, the city has collected $791,457.67 from sales tax diversions, up 7.98% from this time last year ($732,972.55). The city is on pace to meet its $3.1 million projected budget.\nWest Point generated $233,027.11 from sales tax diversions this month, falling by 18.68% from last month\u2019s collections of $286,572.32. This represents a 1.06% increase from September 2025 collections ($230,592.32).\nYear-to-date, the city\u2019s tourism tax has brought in $101,223, down 4.9% from collections this time last year ($106,437.44).\nThe city brought in $32,745 from its tourism tax this month, a 3.98% increase from August collections of $31,491. This marks a 7.19% drop in collections from last September ($35,282.10)\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n      \n      \n        Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community."
                ],
                "output": "readability",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1789769024.0239",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:27.529503+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ],
        "screenshot": [],
        "singlefile": [],
        "title": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "curl",
                    "--silent",
                    "--location",
                    "--compressed",
                    "--max-time",
                    "120",
                    "--user-agent",
                    "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                    "https://cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                "end_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:27.521958+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "Starkville, Columbus just miss FY 26 sales tax goals - The Dispatch",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1789769024.0239",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:27.495954+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ],
        "wget": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "wget",
                    "--no-verbose",
                    "--adjust-extension",
                    "--convert-links",
                    "--force-directories",
                    "--span-hosts",
                    "--no-parent",
                    "-e",
                    "robots=off",
                    "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv",
                    "--timeout=120",
                    "--restrict-file-names=windows",
                    "--page-requisites",
                    "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3",
                    "--compression=auto",
                    "--timestamping",
                    "https://cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3",
                "end_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:27.486845+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/index.html",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1789769024.0239",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-09-19T01:35:22.306001+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ]
    },
    "icons": null,
    "is_archived": true,
    "is_static": false,
    "latest": {
        "archive_org": null,
        "dom": null,
        "favicon": "favicon.ico",
        "git": null,
        "media": null,
        "pdf": null,
        "screenshot": null,
        "singlefile": null,
        "title": "Starkville, Columbus just miss FY 26 sales tax goals - The Dispatch",
        "warc": null,
        "wget": "cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/index.html"
    },
    "link_dir": "/data/archive/1789769024.0239",
    "newest_archive_date": "2026-09-19T01:35:29.971948+00:00",
    "num_failures": 0,
    "num_outputs": 6,
    "oldest_archive_date": "2026-09-19T01:35:21.407197+00:00",
    "path": "/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/",
    "schema": "Link",
    "scheme": "https",
    "snapshot_id": "33e00133-0237-4bdc-ba79-1eeeebb20649",
    "sources": [
        "/data/sources/1789769024-import.txt"
    ],
    "tags": ",cdispatch_local,war-wiki,pool",
    "tags_str": "cdispatch_local,war-wiki,pool",
    "timestamp": "1789769024.0239",
    "title": "Starkville, Columbus just miss FY 26 sales tax goals - The Dispatch",
    "updated": "2026-09-19T01:35:21.407058+00:00",
    "updated_date": "2026-09-19 01:35",
    "url": "https://cdispatch.com/news/starkville-columbus-just-miss-fy-26-sales-tax-goals/"
}