Monett up 4% for the year

By Murray Bishoff Special to the Cassville Democrat

In 2025, more than $48.7 million in sales and use tax revenues came to the 13 bi-county cities, two county governments, the two county emergency services boards, and the two ambulance districts operating in Barry County. 

The Lawrence County Ambulance District, run by the Mercy system, failed to file timely paperwork after earning passage of a 1 percent sales tax last April, and does not expect to receive its first disbursement until January. 

That total compares to $47.5 million collected in 2024, and $43 million in 2023. 

The 2025 total came from 72 different sales and use taxes. Note that online sales, including grocery orders to Walmart, do not charge sales taxes, but go to use taxes. Consequently, general fund totals may drop, drained by a diversion to the use tax, but rise when use tax totals are added in. Cities with older use taxes, like Monett and Aurora, may have seen that drop in a previous year and recorded higher numbers more recently. 

Most cities have not committed use tax revenues to specific purposes and lump them back into the general fund. The following totals show specific collections, not combinations. 

Here’s where the money went:

Aurora, $1,584,931.32, +2 %

Cassville, $1,392,002.36, –3 % 

Exeter, $31,615.30, –3 %

Marionville, $192,433.97, –13 %

Miller (1.5%), $120,128.91, +1 %

Monett, $2,494,914.68, +4 %

Mt. Vernon, $1,065,148.75, +2 %

Pierce City (1.125%), $106,222.95, –13 %

Purdy, $62,631.50, –11 %

Seligman, $150,397.22, +3 %

Verona, $23,604.56, –29 %

Washburn, $33,212.61, –20 % 

Wheaton, $68,823.14, +12 %

The following tax amounts reflect the total amount of tax collected by each city and county, in 2025, as compared to 2024:

Aurora, with four taxes, generated $3,962,305.27, up almost $67,000 from the previous year, holding onto 2024’s 6 percent gain over 2023. For its use tax, Aurora took in $461,138.39, up 16 percent, or almost $65,000 more than the previous year. All Aurora’s taxes combined totaled $4,423,443.66, up more than $131,600, or 3 percent for the year, a gain of almost $1.35 million over pre-pandemic 2019. 

Cassville, which collected four taxes, took in a total of $3,305,005.65, down almost $29,250 from 2024 with rises in only 6 of the last 12 months. The city’s use tax gathered $344,404.50 in its second full year of collections, up 15% from the first full year. The use tax pushed overall totals to $3,649,410.15, up almost $16,500 over last year’s record, up more than $1.3 million from before the pandemic six years ago. 

Exeter, with one tax, collected $31,615.30, down 8%, or $2,811.62 from 2024, when receipts rose by 24%. The total is still up more than $10,000 from six years ago. 

Marionville, which has five taxes, collected $481,083.49, down more than $71,000, or 13 percent from 2024, in part due to the loss of the community grocery store. Marionville’s use tax, collected for the first full year, brought in an additional $115,104.01, up 32 percent from 10 months collected in 2024, bringing the overall total to $596,187.50, for a drop of $45,477.16, or 7 percent. That’s still up more than $155,000 from pre-pandemic 2019.\

Miller, which collects five taxes, received $204,656.68, up almost $2,000 from 2024, breaking a three-year skid. Miller’s receipts are still up more than $32,000 from six years ago.  

Monett, with five active sales taxes and two sunsetted taxes, generated revenue in 2025. Even the sales tax paying for the Justice Center, sunsetted in 2016, still brought in $48.59. The seven taxes combined brought in $5,572,579.03, up almost $224,000 from a year ago, almost wiping out the drop in 2024 due to the newly introduced use tax. The use tax, collected for its second full year, brought in $954,045.34, up 11% from 2024. All Monett’s taxes combined totaled $6,526,575.78, up almost $316,000,, or 5%, on top of the 4% gain in 2024. That’s up more than $2 million from 2019. 

Mt. Vernon, which has four taxes, received $2,612,114.75, down $11,777.19, or less than half a percent from 2024. However, receipts from Mt. Vernon’s use tax totaled $417,689.11, up 42 percent from the previous year. Combined, Mt. Vernon’s tax total of $3,029,805.86, down a mere $7,516.21 from 2024, and down almost $38,000 from the pandemic peak in 2023. However, compared to pre-pandemic 2019, before the city added its half-cent tax for parks and its use tax, tax receipts are up by more than $1.3 million.

Pierce City, which collects five taxes, received $204,165.90, down almost $30,000, or 13 percent with the loss of its grocery store. It was the city’s third consecutive annual drop, coming off a $267,428 pandemic peak in 2022, and $38,000 lower than pre-pandemic 2019. 

Purdy, with three taxes, collected $125,264.36, down 11%,, or almost $15,000 under the 2024 total. Purdy also saw its pandemic peak in 2022 at $144,309.31. Current receipts are about $277 lower than the 2018 total. 

Seligman now has five sales taxes, with five months of collections from its new 1% tax supporting law enforcement, creating the highest total of any bi-county city at 3.5%. These taxes combined generated $371,489.91, up $43,234.40 from a year ago. Without the police tax, receipts were down almost $6,000. Seligman’s use tax, now in its second full year, generated $82,660.17, up 40% from 2024, putting total receipts at $454,150.08, up almost $67,000 over last year. Compared to pre-pandemic 2019, which had two fewer taxes, receipts are up almost $200,000 in six years. 

Verona, with four sales taxes, saw sales tax income total $59,009.99, a $9,101, or 29 percent drop from 2024, a drop of three consecutive years from a pandemic peak of $132,828.79. It’s the lowest annual total since 2013, when Verona had only three sales taxes. 

Washburn, with three taxes, produced $66,934.22, thanks in part to an unprecedented suspension of collections by the State Auditor for two months due to a clerical mix-up. That’s a drop of $15,274.76,, or 19% from 2024. Washburn’s use tax, collected for a second full year, brought in an additional $32,921.59, boosting the year’s total to $99,855.81, only $4,000 below the 2023 tally but a drop of $16,376.44 from 2024. Prior to the pandemic, and the arrival of Washburn’s Dollar General store, the city received just under $60,000 from its sales taxes in 2019. 

Wheaton produced $98,895.89 from its two sales taxes, even though the city’s half-cent tax for transportation only generated 46% of the 1-cent tax instead of 50%, an unexplained anomaly that’s been going on since 2017. The year’s total was up nearly $10,000,, or 11% from last year. Wheaton’s use tax generated $16,430.07, a gain of 33%, putting the combined tax revenue total at $115,325.96. That’s down from the pandemic peak of $146,998.93 in 2021, but up $14,000 from 2024. Prior to the pandemic, Wheaton’s tax total was $71,217.18 in 2019.

Lawrence County has four .5 percent sales taxes and a .25 percent tax supporting maintenance of the Judicial Center. The general fund received $2,110,569.69, down $10,850.01, or a half of a percent, almost exactly the amount that receipts rose between 2023 and 2024. The five taxes collected $8,435,462.90, down $36,439.87 for the year. However, the county’s use tax brought in an additional $2,387,485.16, a gain of 13 percent over 2024. That gave the county total sales and use tax revenue of $10,822,948.06, up $238,125.03, or 2 percent for the second year in a row. That’s almost double the total from 2019. 

Barry County has three .5% taxes plus a .125% tax augmenting the general fund. Barry County’s two general fund sales taxes received $3,545,276.04, up $45,076.58, or 1% from 2024. In pre-pandemic 2019, general fund receipts were just under $2.7 million. 

Barry County’s four taxes combined brought in $9,218,430.78, up almost $135,000 from last year, the sixth consecutive year of gains. Barry County’s use tax yielded an additional $2,271,450.74, another 10% gain, with 26%,, or $593,028.16 of that going into law enforcement. The overall sum of $11,489,881.52 was up almost $345,000,, or 3%. That’s nearly $667,000 more than Lawrence County’s sales taxes generated. In pre-pandemic 2019, before the law enforcement and the use taxes, the county received a little more than $4.8 million in the year. 

Lawrence County 911, supported by its .5 percent sales tax, received $2,107,322.46, a drop of $9,143.55, or less than a half a percent. It was the first annual tax since it started in 2018. 

Barry County 911 and central dispatching, supported by a .375% sales tax, garnered $2,127,145.41, up a little more than $27,000 for the year, the third year in a row for a gain of less than 1%. Six years ago, the tax generated $1.6 million. 

South Barry County Ambulance District, south of Butterfield, reported receiving $1,227,664.78, a gain of $44,213.87 from a year ago,, or 4%, compared to a 7% jump between 2023 and 2024. 

The Barry-Lawrence Ambulance District received a tax increase to 1% in April, and began receiving larger collections, up from .5%, in November. For the year, the district received $1,419,844.74, an increase of $123,430.91. Between 2023 and 2024, receipts fell by almost $43,000 as Monett’s use tax kicked in, decreasing sales tax volume. Barry-Lawrence serves territory from Freistatt to Purdy, and from just west of Verona to east of Sarcoxie. Prior to switching to sales tax in 2019, the ambulance district serving Monett received around $330,000 in property taxes annually.