For a second straight month, sales tax collections in Vicksburg were up, with August receipts running 9.54 percent over 2010.

Vicksburg receives 18.5 percent of all sales taxes collected by businesses inside the city. Revenues to the city lag actual sales tax collections by two months; for example, receipts for April reflect taxes collected on sales in February.

The city’s fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. According to statistics from the city accountant’s office, August sales tax collections totaled $637,673 — $55,519 over the August 2010 numbers.

Sales tax disbursements for July, which were received in September, were 1.12 percent over 2010. July tax collections totaled $615,497 compared with $608,681 in July 2010.

So far, total disbursements for the 2011 fiscal year total $6.62 million, or .49 percent less than the $6.65 million collected for the same period in 2010, with the September sales tax disbursements remaining.

“I think it’s great news that our sales tax revenue is up,” Mayor Paul Winfield said. “It’s an indication that our economy is getting stronger in Vicksburg, and I take my hat off to the retailers and business people who have taken a chance and stuck with us.”

He said the new sales tax figures were a positive sign that things were improving in the area.

“We’ve got some new restaurants opening up and some new retail businesses coming that are going to bring some more money into our economy,” he said. Vicksburg’s monthly sale tax revenues during the 2011 fiscal year have resembled a roller coaster, with collections surpassing the previous year’s total one month and dropping the next.

Besides July and August, tax collections surpassed the prior year’s during four other months: October, December, February and April. Collections were down in November, January, March, May and June.

City officials blamed the low May sales tax receipts on a sluggish economy and the record-breaking 2011 Mississippi River Flood, which hit Vicksburg in April and May. The river crested at 57.1 feet on May 19, 14.1 feet above flood stage and nine-tenths of a foot above the Great Flood of 1927.

The flooding not only put people out of their homes, but forced visitors to either reschedule or cancel plans to visit the city. It also caused two of Vicksburg’s five casinos to close; another was shut down for renovations. The shutdowns forced city officials to lower their projections for casino tax revenue for the remainder of the fiscal year.