City of Bonham utility customers will be seeing something new in their April water bills. BEDCo and city staff worked jointly to develop a colorful “Shop Bonham First” flyer in an effort to let consumers know how important local sales tax is to sustaining retail and service sector jobs and helping fund essential city services. 

BEDCo Executive Director Steve Filipowicz commented, “As we work closely with Bonham city staff, we are keenly aware that Bonham sale tax receipts have not kept pace with increases other Texas communities are seeing. We thought it important to reach-out and remind local consumers just what their local sales tax dollars go for.” 

BEDCo commissioned an extensive retail study in 2006 to quantify retail leakagefor Bonham and the retail trade area. The report identified an annual product potential (meaning retail leakage going elsewhere) of over $326 million dollars. This information is vividly illustrated on BEDCo’s website within the Development Opportunities section of the Community Profile. You can see this at: http://www.animateddemographics.com/bonham/retail_analysis

Filipowicz observed, “If we could start by capturing just 10% of the leakage via building awareness through a “Shop Bonham First” effort geared to local consumers, that would be an additional $32 million in local annual sales and generate over $480,000 in increased sales tax revenue for the City and BEDCo to re-invest in our community!” 

He went on to praise city staff for helping supply data used on the flyer, and particularly the utility billing staff in impacting the design and lay-out of the flyer so that it could be incorporated – at no  extra cost - in the regular water bill cycle mail-out.

 

 

BEDCo’s own Louise Gandert did the design lay-out and then refined the final version based on feedback from a focus group of local consumers and BEDCo board members. The color flyer was printed locally at Reeves Printing and delivered to Utility Billing in time for this month’s mail-out. Some 3,300 City of Bonham water customers should be seeing it starting this Thursday and Friday. 

Depending on the feedback, BEDCo and the City receive they may repeat this sort of Shop Bonham First insert again prior to the holiday shopping season.