Jefferson City's sales taxes are heading in the right direction with only one month of receipts left to be reported.
November receipts showed the 1 percent general sales tax coming in $61,000 above projections, bringing the total for the year to date $6,200 above projections.
The half-cent capital improvement tax also exceeded projections and is now $20,000 above projections for the year to date and the half-cent parks sales tax is $47,000 above projections for the year to date.
The November receipts are actually for sales taxes reported in September, which usually is a good month for Jefferson City's lodging tax receipts as well.
The city's lodging tax fund for the conference center is up to $1.4 million, bringing in an average of $49,310 per month. September collections of the lodging tax saw a $10,000 increase from August.
At a Finance Committee meeting Tuesday, council members speculated the increase had to do with events held in Jefferson City around that time, though the particular events mentioned, Lincoln University's homecoming and the state cross country championships, actually were held in October.
Though October receipts for the lodging tax are not available yet, October 2012 stayed at the same level as September 2012, which also had seen a $10,000 increase from August 2012.
Third Ward Councilman Bob Scrivner said the increases validate how important it is to bring groups to the community and the city's efforts to construct a conference center.
"If there was ever a validation of what a convention center can do for a community," Scrivner said "that is huge validation."
City officials have said they like to believe it has similar effect on sales taxes, but because the receipts from the state are broken down by month, the city cannot specifically measure whether a particular event on a particular day really increases the overall amount of revenue collected.