Mt. Crested Butte sees improvement in sales tax revenues

“Still not where March has been historically”

For the first three months of the year, business in Mt. Crested Butte was showing signs of recovery, relative to what was expected. First-quarter sales tax figures have come in nearly 28 percent higher than what was budgeted for the first part of 2011.

Although this year the town projected revenues 5 percent below what they were in 2010—which was down from 2009—it’s an emerging trend town manager Joe Fitzpatrick calls “fantastic.”
“In March alone, sales tax was $53,535 above where it was in March a year ago,” he told the Town Council on Tuesday, May 17. “That’s a 19.8 percent increase, year over year, in the amount of sales tax collected, but we’re still not where March has been historically.” This past March a total of $323,696 was collected.
For example, in March 2000 the town collected more than $367,000 in sales tax, which doesn’t seem that far ahead of the first quarter this year. But adjust for inflation and a decade later the town should be bringing in more than $440,000 and, as Fitzpatrick says, “We’ve got a long way to go.”
Along with rising tax revenues, the number of people stopping by the Crested Butte/Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce Visitor’s Center on the mountain during the first three months of the year saw a sharp increase as well.
According to the Chamber, nearly 800 more people walked into the Mt. Crested Butte Visitor Center in the first quarter of 2011 than during the same period last year, an increase of more than 35 percent.
At the same time, the number of walk-ins to the Visitor Center in Crested Butte during the first quarter dropped by 6.5 percent—the latest in a several-year string of first quarter declines—while sales tax collections in the first three months of the years saw a modest gain of 2 percent in Crested Butte.
With first-quarter revenues up across the valley, Fitzpatrick said, “I feel like we’ve bottomed out. Summer is looking very busy and active with 27 weddings out here and a lot of things going on.”
The summer ahead could yield bigger returns than the last few with cycling events expected to bring several thousand people to town, an expanded Crested Butte Music Festival and Crested Butte Arts Festival, and improvements to the amenities and entertainment schedule at Crested Butte Mountain Resort that are expected to be a boon to business.
CBMR’s director of resort services Nick Herrin told the council this spring, “The activity we got out of the base area and the Adventure Park and what it brought to the mountain village and the town of Mt. Crested Butte really caused Crested Butte Mountain Resort to look at other things we could add to it and really grow our summer.”
What they found was a chance to install a multi-stage zip-line canopy tour that could encourage guests to stay another day and add to the overall appeal of the mountain.
Pat Rauch, a mechanic at Crested Butte Sports, says business was steady around the shop over the winter and it seems to be holding over for the summer, at least he hopes so, if early-season activity is any indication.
Like most people working in the industry, it’s a much-needed reprieve after a few lean years. “We had a great winter,” Rauch says. “Summer for us is looking good. Now we’re just waiting for the snow to melt. There are no people in town to ride mountain bikes and I’m a little sketched out about what they’re going to do for the races. But we’ve been seeing real steady repair work and now we’re trying to get our rental fleet built.”
Whether the recent bump in business is something to bank on remains to be seen, Rauch says, with gas prices holding around $4 a gallon.
“We depend on the big Suburbans showing up and when it costs you five hundred bucks to get your Suburban up here from Austin, that sucks,” he says.
Fitzpatrick isn’t holding his breath, either. With sales tax revenues of more than $100,000 beyond what was budgeted and high expectations for the summer, Fitzpatrick still says the town is going to take the conservative approach and replenish budget reserves that he says, “We sorely need to rebuild.
“We’re only five months into the year. If summer doesn’t pan out quite like expected and we don’t have a decent December, we don’t have extra money,” Fitzpatrick says. “So it’s not money we want to spend quite yet.”