Sales tax leaves mixed bag to end 2025 for Law. Co. taxing entities

December totals smallest in years; overall positives for many Lawrence County municipalities, Marionville, Pierce City, Verona drop
 
Sales tax revenues to the bi-county area ended 2025 on an unusually low note. Total receipts of $2.5 million to bi-county cities and county governments dropped by 13 percent from 2024, the lowest amount since 2021, at the beginning of the pandemic surge in local sales.
Use taxes became a more prominent feature in the year-end tallies, generating revenue from online sales in five of the seven Barry County cities generating sales tax and three of the six Lawrence County cities. For the year, only half the bi-county cities bested totals for 2024, while countywide taxes for emergency services showed marginal gains. Both Barry and Lawrence county governments, both with use taxes, recorded big gains in 2025.
Complicating the picture further, the Missouri Department of Revenue issued interest for money collected at the end of December, for funds received by the state for the second half of 2022. It was the only interest paid out in 2025. Lawrence County and its six cities split up $2,060.75, while Barry County and its seven cities parsed out $2,099.96. The smallest amount was four cents for a sunsetting Monett sales tax. Totals have been added into the respective tax totals for the month. Interest disbursements once again came without warning and no indication when another might come.
The six Lawrence County cities collecting sales tax received $500,242.14 in December, a drop of 19 percent from a year ago. Every city documented a drop from last December, something that hasn’t happened for the end of the year since 2018.
• Mt. Vernon’s 1 percent general fund received $76,806.58, down $9,788.29.
• Aurora’s 1 percent general fund tax generated $105,335.41, down $23,029.88 or 18 percent.
• Marionville’s 1 percent tax produced $8,694.23, down $3,228.24.
• Miller’s 1.5 percent general fund tax yielded $4,620.74, down $7,449.68 or 62 percent.
• Pierce City’s two general fund taxes at 1.125 percent received $6,629.98, down $6,303.20 or 49 percent.
• Verona’s 1 percent tax took in $549.11, down $1,339.51 or 71 percent.
The county’s two half-cent taxes for general operations and road maintenance each received $142,587, each down $38,807.93 or 22 percent.
The emergency services .5 percent tax funding 911 and dispatching produced $142,622.96, down $38,422.91.

Summary for 2025
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. That includes 35 in Lawrence County, not counting Monett. Note that online sales, including grocery orders made 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:
General fund sales tax collected in 2025 for cities:
City     1 percent general     Compared to 2024
Aurora     $1,584,931.32     +2 %
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 %
Verona     $23,604.56      –29 %
Total tax number
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.
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 percent from 2024. All Monett’s taxes combined totaled $6,526,575.78, up almost $316,000 or 5 percent, on top of the 4 percent 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.
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.
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.
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.
The Barry-Lawrence Ambulance District received a tax increase to 1 percent in April, and began receiving larger collections, up from .5 percent, 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.