YETMO

“Powered by Petrol”

It’s been six months since competitive gasoline prices hit Palm Coast and Flagler County.

You may recall an earlier article where I predicted great monetary windfalls from our lower gas prices, as residents would stay home, buy petrol, and fill our county coffers with revenue to help finance country transportation projects.

“Show me the money,” you may cry. I’m crying, too. It doesn’t appear that our windfall will be much to write about, although we’re doing better than St. John’s and Volusia counties. That some consolation, I suppose.

Since there’s nothing to write about, bye.

You wish. Just kidding.

According to figures provided by the Florida Department of Revenue, Flagler’s gasoline tax receipts from February of this year through May increased by a huge one percent compared with the same period last year.

The good news, if there’s any good news with 1%, is that St. Johns and Volusia receipts dropped 4% and 5%, respectively.

Conversations with Flagler County and Palm Coast officials supported the ho-hum nature of this new development. No one’s admitting to sizable revenue increases.

It’s perplexing to me, for it appears that far more cars are filling up in our gas stations than ever before, certainly more than one percent more. Most stations have adopted lower prices and the local pump traffic seemed to validate the proposition that we’d be awash in gas money. When I drive through the community, I see cars at filling stations. Imagine that, cars and gasoline together in one place in Flagler County.

Of course, within the past two weeks, Flagler has lost its discount gas status. St. Johns is back on top and by quite a bit. A month ago, we had lower prices than St. Johns, even with our additional penny per gallon tax.

Mysteriously, we’re now several cents higher than our northern neighbors. I wonder why. I hope our ethanol establishments haven’t exchanged winks and nods and adopted a far less competitive pricing environment. If so, drivers will follow the bargains and take their money out of our communities again.

But wait! June numbers are in. Gas tax receipts in Flagler rose by $50,000, or a very healthy 33% compared with last June, while St. Johns increased by 10% and Volusia dipped 2%.

Maybe there’s hope after all. If you look at May and June only, our receipts were $83,000 more than last year. By comparison to our county neighbors, not only was our percentage increase larger (27% v. St. Johns’ 7% and Volusia’s 1%), our receipts were higher in actual dollars (St. Johns +$66,000; Volusia +$46,000). That’s impressive considering our relative small size. Volusia’s population is 10 times greater than ours.

Although the jury’s still out on how well and long we can maintain competitive gasoline prices and enjoy greater local tax revenues, the numbers so far show that more folks are staying home to buy their gasoline.

I’ve thrown around a lot of numbers and I apologize. But the point to remember is that from February, when our gas prices became competitive, through June, only Flagler, in our tri-county area, had a net increase in gasoline tax receipts.

We’ll see what happens in the months to come.

Are good times here again for the first time?