A springtime bump apparently from skiing and the Freeride World Tour helped push sales tax revenues to a five-year high in 2015.

Haines Borough figures show sales tax revenues reached $2.95 million, a 2.3 percent increase over 2014 that came despite a 1.1 percent drop in tax income from retail, the single largest category of sales that accounted for $1.33 million of total tax revenues.

“Considering retail was down, you might have expected us to do worse, like the rest of the country,” said Jila Stuart, chief fiscal officer for the borough.

The most dramatic change came in tax revenues from lodging, which increased nearly 13 percent over the previous year. A breakdown by the borough shows a 36 percent jump in March and a 40 percent jump in April, compared to the same months in 2014.

Tax revenues from restaurants, bars, tours and art galleries made similar jumps in March and April 2015. The Freeride World Tour, an extreme skiing competition, was held here during the last two weeks of March.

Tourism director Leslie Ross said spring skiing is most likely the cause of the spike, although Freeride was over by April. “It’s hard to know whether heli-skiers are here for a few days or two weeks (but) that’s the only thing that happens in April that could account for that increase. That’s awesome to see that,” Ross said.

Lodging brought in $312,364 in sales tax in 2015 and borough figures show increases in 10 of the year’s 12 months, spiking in August.

Sales tax clerk Jessie Badger said the lodging numbers also may have been boosted by the opening of the Aspen Hotel in June and enforcement of sales tax requirements on a growing number of vacation rentals and bed and breakfasts.

Tax revenues from tourism businesses also increased in 2015 for the months of March through September over the previous year, according to borough figures, countering reports of a flat tour season.

“Despite troubles with the ferry schedule, our ferry numbers were not down. I think the people who got hit were the RV parks, but people were still driving and taking the ferry. I don’t think we had an enormous drop in road traffic that people were thinking was going to happen,” Ross said.

Combined tax revenues from eating and drinking establishments posted increases over 2014 for eight months. Interestingly, those did not include July and August, which showed an overall drop in sales from the previous year. November and December also saw declines.

Fireweed Restaurant owner Adam Richard said he couldn’t say for sure, but he said last year’s spring business may have been boosted by a relative lack of snow and skiing conditions elsewhere in the world. The drop in value of the Canadian dollar may have been to blame for the mid-summer dip, he said.

The borough’s figures show a 1 percent drop in revenues from “services,” defined as auto repair, utilities, and professional and personal services.

The 4.7 percent increase in construction isn’t significant considering the increased cost of living, said real estate broker Glenda Gilbert. Construction dipped in 2013, but rebounded in the past two years and is holding steady, she said.

“Interest rates are so low, it’s promoting growth, but I won’t say lenders are getting any easier,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert said the sales tax report isn’t surprising to her. “People are buying a lot of stuff online, but they can’t eat and drink online.”

Chief fiscal officer Stuart said she has heard in past years that slight increases in tax revenues are offset by inflation. “If our sales tax is going up 2 percent and inflation is going up 2 percent, it doesn’t mean we’re growing. We’re just holding steady.”

During the past four years, the borough’s sales tax growth has roughly matched the change in the U.S. Consumer Price Index, but in 2015, the index slowed to 0.1 percent (attributed to a decline in fuel prices), compared to the 2.3 percent increase in borough sales tax revenue.

“The only thing that raised an eyebrow for me was when I compared it to the Consumer Price Index,” Stuart said. “Maybe we’re just lagging behind (economic changes in the Lower 48) or maybe that has little to do with what’s going on here and it’s only coincidence that we tracked closely to (the price index) in the past.”

Stuart said the decline in retail sales may have been tied to the drop in the price of fuel and, possibly, warmer weather. Fuel sales are included in the category for retail sales.

According to the borough, there were $53.7 million in taxable sales in the borough in 2015. The 2.3 percent increase amounted to $67,503.