Business appears to be good for area merchants as sales tax collections hold steady.

Those numbers, which represents taxes collected in March and remitted in April, are the most recent available to municipalities.

In Andalusia, Mayor Earl Johnson said Wednesday, totals for March are down “slightly” from February’s collections; however, there has been positive growth during the year.

“We’re up about 3.5 percent in year-to-date collections,” Johnson said. “So, business is good. We’re going to have some fluctuation during the months, but we’re hoping things remain positive over all.”

The month’s sales tax collections in the county are up slightly – a little more than $3,000 from this time last year, said assistant county administrator Pam Steele.

“We collected $636,571 for April 2010 and $633,131 for April 2009,” she said.

Those figures bring the year-to-date collections to $4,230,379 – a 0.5 percent decrease from last year’s year-to-date total from the same period.

In Florala, March sales tax collections came in at $33,261 – a 6 percent increase over last year’s corresponding year-to-date total, city clerk Kathy Rathel said.

That figure is also an increase of nearly 10 percent from February’s sales tax collection total of $30,275. A year-to-date collection comparison was not available.

As for Opp, there was only a $1 increase between the month’s 2009 and 2010 totals, with the city reporting $170,204; however, recent totals show a more than 4 percent decrease in overall year-to-date sales tax collections between the years.