CITY SALES TAX REVENUE
The City of Starkville, Mississippi
By Month as Collected at the Cash Register
(does not include 2% Restaurant Tax)

Year 2010 2011

JANUARY 448,787.31 393,970.11
FEBRUARY 420,263.64 432,510.76
MARCH 448,312.25 449,079.94
APRIL 450,470.94 457,758.78
MAY 423,737.02 468,471.49
JUNE 426,622.12 419,652.34
JULY 418,245.73 429,807.46
AUGUST 458,004.27 490,740.10
SEPTEMBER 463,610.19 467,034.81
OCTOBER 430,336.16 460,505.34
NOVEMBER 429,947.02 473,450.02

Yearly Totals

$5,317,568.11 $4,942,981.15

Monthly Avg. For Year

$443,130.68 $449,361.92

% Change 10-11

JANUARY -12.21%
FEBRUARY 2.91%
MARCH 0.17%
APRIL 1.62%
MAY 10.56%
JUNE -1.63%
JULY 2.76%
AUGUST 7.15%
SEPTEMBER 0.74%
OCTOBER 7.01%
NOVEMBER 10.12%

By STEVEN NALLEY

The downtown lights can’t exactly be called Christmas lights anymore.
To call them Christmas lights is to suggest they’re coming down or turning off now that the holiday season is over. Starkville Main Street Association Manager Jennifer Gregory said this was never the case.
“We began speaking about the need for additional lighting downtown in January of 2011 in a committee meeting that included individuals from the (Greater Starkville Development) Partnership, the city of Starkville, the Starkville Police Department, Starkville Electric Department, Mississippi State University and local business owners because we had received suggestions from many community members for what they perceived as a need for additional lighting downtown,” Gregory said. “That was the plan, actually, from the very beginning … to have this lighting year-round, but we had to have support from Starkville Electric, and we got that support early on.”
The lights lining the rooftops of downtown Starkville businesses will not only stay up all year but also turn on every night.
Gregory said the easement language for the lights gives SMSA ownership of the lights and responsibility for maintenance, repairs and upgrades. She said SMSA paid $18,500 for the lighting with the Starkville Civic League contributing $4,000, the SMSA and the Starkville Convention and Visitors Bureau each contributing $5,000 and fundraisers making up the difference. Fundraising efforts are still ongoing, she said, and Gregory thanks the project’s contributors.
“I also want to give much, much appreciation to SED,” Gregory said. “They spent many, many hours installing these lights, and they have been very easy to work with and community-minded throughout the project. This project would not have happened without their contribution and support.”
Gregory said SED is also paying for the extra electricity to activate the lights, an expense SED General Manager Terry Kemp said makes up a small portion of the city’s overall street lighting budget because they are LED lights instead of traditional incandescent bulbs.
“(The cost of the electricity is) really almost going to be negligible,” Kemp said. “It might be a dollar a day, roughly. It depends on how many hours they actually burn. Had it been incandescent, it could have been 20 times that. Each (bulb) is 0.37 watts. An incandescent … bulb would be 7 watts.
“You could also look at it as an equivalent to four of the cobra head street lights that are in the area,” Kemp added. “It’s a small piece if you look at the wattage as relates to the overall lighting downtown.”
Kemp said LED lights also have extended life spans, lasting as much as 50,000 hours versus 3,000 hours for incandescent bulbs. He said the lights are timed to activate using the same photocell sensors which activate street lights each evening.

Read complete article at Starkville Daily News.