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<\/p>\nBROWNSVILLE, Texas (My RGV News) \u2014 Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation President and CEO Josh Mejia, in a recent interview about BCIC\u2019s just-released fiscal year 2021 annual report, said that despite the year\u2019s challenges due to the ongoing pandemic, the organization is in a good place financially as it heads into 2022.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s partly because of a big surge in sales tax revenue. Despite the pandemic and the closure of international bridges to non-essential travel from Mexico most of the year, the city\u2019s sales tax increased nearly 19 percent in 2021. BCIC\u2019s operations and business-assistance programs are funded by a half-cent sales tax. A few things are behind the increase, including a return to restaurants and shopping last year as people who held back on spending in 2020 indulged the urge to get back to normal, Mejia said.<\/p>\n
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Brownsville also saw the usual \u201cretail leakage,\u201d what they call it when residents go out of town to shop mitigated to some extent as locals moved toward shopped local, he said. Inflation has also helped push sales tax higher, since things cost more, as has a certain rocket company and it\u2019s 1,500 or employees whose spending power is being felt from Rancho Viejo to downtown Brownsville, Mejia said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t deny that SpaceX\u2019s presence and continued growth has also triggered an increase in sales tax revenue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n