For the first time in many months, St. Mary Parish sales and use tax collections soared during July, rising over 28 percent from July 2016. Though the bump in collections is a welcome sight nearly three years into the dip in oil prices, officials say they need to see a trend of a few months of climbing collections to be confident the area’s economy is improving. Also, much of the increase was due to several, large, one-time collections. Parish sales tax collections totaled $3.53 million in July, a 28.5 percent increase from the $2.75 million collected in July 2016. Officials ...