Sherman's three-year-old program that hands downtown retailers back part of the sales tax they collect is up for a check-in, and city staff want the City Council to say whether it should keep taking new businesses.
An update on the Main Street Reimbursement Program is listed under other business on the council's agenda for Monday, Nov. 2. The meeting starts at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 220 W. Mulberry St.
How it works
The council created the program in August 2023 to give retail businesses a reason to open in historic downtown Sherman. A qualifying business can be paid back the city's 1% general sales tax that it collects, for as long as five years.
According to a staff report from Nate Strauch, the city's community and support services manager, the program has paid out roughly $255,000 across the past four tax years. A second staff report on the same agenda put the typical payment for tax year 2025 at an average of $3,183. Individual businesses' amounts are not public; "sales tax receipts are confidential," that report says.
The question for the council
Jan. 1, 2027, "will mark the end of enrollment in the program for most of the businesses participating," the report says. Staff plan to give an update and ask the council whether to keep the program going with no end date or end it when 2026 runs out.
Either way, businesses already enrolled whose eligibility has not run out would keep receiving payments until their five-year windows close, the report says.
