Vandervort Says Receipts From This Year Show Losses Without Former Lodging Taxes

It’s been an unwelcome but familiar tune around the lake area this year…sales tax receipts are down compared to recent years.

“It’s a tragic thing, it’s a terrible thing and and you know, now we’ve got the receipts,” says Merlyn Vandervort, owner of the Encore.

He tells KRMS News he saw nothing good happening when the lodging tax disappeared and that the subsequent numbers tell the story, “From July 1st, 2024 to June 30th, 2025, our sales tax revenues in Camden County have dropped. It is significant considering in the previous ten years the average retail sales tax had increased by 5.85%.”

Even the Covid years, thanks to national publicity on the lake area staying open, saw tax receipts jump by over four-percent.

Vandervort goers on to say, to get back to the prosperity shared over the past several years in the lake area, the lodging tax needs to be re-written and put back on the books.