The yields of elastic revenues are highly responsive to changes in the economic base and inflation. As the economic base expands or inflation goes up, elastic revenues rise in roughly proportional or greater amounts and vice versa. A good example is sales tax revenue, which increases during good economic periods with the increase in retail business and declines during poor times, even though the tax rate remains the same.

Economic and Community Development and City Finance coordinate this data annually. Sales tax revenue is elastic and fluctuates with changes in the economy. As the economy improves, sales tax revenue will be more consistent and stable. However, the economy has numerous variables and moving parts that could cause a downturn including international events, new regulations, and consumer confidence. In fiscal year 2024, 37% of the total revenue were accounted for as elastic tax revenue. This is a 7 percentage point over the City's target. While the ratio of elastic tax remains higher than target, the amount collected in FY24 is lower compared to FY23 due to receiving less grant funding. The dollar amount for total elastic tax revenues in fiscal year 2024 is based of unaudited numbers.

The City of Germantown's unemployment rate is a measure of the prevalence of unemployment and it is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of locally unemployed individuals by all individuals currently in the local labor force. During periods of recession, the local economy can experience a relatively high unemployment rate. During periods of expansion, local economies will experience lower unemployment rates.

Germantown continues to see a positive trend in unemployment rate for the City. As more businesses enter the City this rate could continue to go down. An increase in the City's unemployment rate would illustrate local, regional and national weakening economic conditions and market forces outside of the City's control. The City's unemployment rate has remained under the target year after year. For the first quarter the unemployment rate saw a slight increase to 3.0 %. This fluctuation could continue as the economy responds to inflation pressures.

New business growth in the City is determined by the number of businesses that open in the City over time. As there are redevelopments and new developments within the City's key commercial areas, new opportunities will be provided for further expansion of this indicator.

The City continues to focus on business retention and the needs of our existing businesses. New business growth has slowed, but is continuing to rise in the City as new developments and redevelopments take place in key commercial areas. There are several projects currently under construction and more in process of approvals. The current occupancy rates for retail spaces is also high (97%) which can limit new business starts. These numbers when viewed with the new businesses opening each quarter represent Germantown's strong climate for business recruitment and retention. As new space continues to be added to the existing inventory and new business growth remains static or goes down, the City will consider this as a warning trend and work to modify using enhanced recruitment efforts and development process improvements. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, there were 37 new business licenses issued.

Cost of living is the amount of money needed to sustain a certain level of living, including basic expenses such as housing, food, taxes and health care. Cost of living is often used to compare how expensive it is to live in one city versus another locale. The cost of living indices are based on a US average of 100. An amount below 100 means a community is less expensive than the US average. An amount above 100 means that a community is more expensive than the US average.

With a cost of living index increasing slightly to 111 for fiscal year 2024 the City of Germantown can be more expensive than other communities in the country; however, Germantown residents experience a high quality of life that sets the City apart. This includes quick response times for public safety, low vacancy rates for retail and office spaces, an award winning City parks system and an overall median housing value of over $1.2 billion.