After a one-month surge in St. Mary Parish’s sales and use tax collections, August saw a drop in collections continuing a familiar trend that region has seen for the past few years. Sales and use tax collections totaled $2.69 million in August, a 4.7 percent drop from the $2.82 million collected during August 2016. Sales tax collections are made each month on purchases that occurred during the prior month. Officials collected $116,518 as a result of financial audits, and $139,768 during the same month of 2016. Excluding collections from audits, collections decreased 4.1 percent from August 2016 to August 2017.