The City of Tulsa’s sales tax collections for mid-August to mid-September, as reported by the Oklahoma Tax Commission, are above last year’s totals for the same period and above the budget estimate for the month. Actual tax received is $17.1 million, up 5.6 percent from the $16.2 million collected during the same period last year. The conservative, projected budget estimate for the period was $15.42 million. For the year to date, sales taxes received total $66.82 million, slightly above the $66.19 million collected to this point last year. Use taxes exceeded last year’s total but remained below the projected budget estimate for the period. Use taxes collected for the mid-August to mid-September period totaled $1.29 million. That was up from the $1.11 million collected in the same period last year but below the $1.36 million expected. For the year to date, use taxes collected total $5.53 million, down 3 percent from the $5.7 million collected for the same period last year. “We are still carefully monitoring our revenue intake and projections,” Mayor Dewey Bartlett Jr. said. “We feel encouraged that we remain on the right track, but it is important to look at collections in the context of where we came. So far, year to date, the sales tax collections are less than 1 percent higher than last year when the city was in the worst budget crisis since the Great Depression. “We will continue to plan and operate with conservative estimates as we work to implement cost-saving changes, efficiency recommendations and look for ways to increase revenues.”