Missing out on revenue from online sales, local town looks for own zip

CAPE CARTERET – Carteret County Finance Director Dee Meshaw enjoys the convenience of online shopping like many others but from her office she also sees a downside that comes from a longstanding issue over a zip code.

An area of western Carteret County, including Cape Carteret, Cedar Point and Peletier, shares a zip code with Swansboro and that Onslow County designation has likely meant some sales tax revenues intended for Carteret County have gone to their neighbor, Meshaw said.

She said there’s no way to know how much money Carteret County has missed out on but the problem comes from online sales.

The zip code used for a purchase online determines where the sales tax goes. While that’s not a problem for most of Carteret County, when a Swansboro zip code is entered, it’s Onslow County that gets the sales tax revenue.

It may not be a large sum of money but Meshaw said every penny is important, particularly during current budget constraints.

“With the economy the way it is everyone wants to make sure they get the revenues they are due,” she said.

The Carteret County Veterans Office estimates that about 10 percent of the more than 11,000 clients it has on file live within the Carteret area with a Swansboro zip code. While the office assists those veterans and handles their claims, the veteran population and expenditure figures kept by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs puts them within Onslow County.

The latest VA figures show $27 million in veteran compensation and pension; education and vocation rehabilitation; and insurance and indemnities coming into Carteret County last year. But Veterans Services Officer Hank Gotard said the zip code issue skews the numbers and they don’t fully reflect the economic impact on the county.

“Claims generated bring money to the county and we’re not getting full credit for it,” he said.

The zip code concerns go beyond the delivery of the mail and the longstanding issue is getting new attention by the Town of Cape Carteret, where Mayor Ron Harkless has been looking into the idea of a new zip code.

While past discussions have historically involved a request for a post office, Harkless said that’s not realistic at a time when the U.S. Postal Service is cutting back.

In his correspondence with the Postal Service he suggested that a new zip code be established for the western Carteret area now under Swansboro’s zip code. A second suggestion was to switch them to the Emerald Isle post office and let them share a zip code that would be in Carteret County.

“I was looking for the simplest solution, the least expensive solution to the problem I was told existed,” Harkless said in a recent interview.

In a November 2009 letter responding to the request, Postal Service District Manager David Fields indicated he’d send a staff member to the area this month to perform a boundary review.

Monica Robbs, communications coordinator for the Mid-Carolinas District of the Postal Service, confirmed that a customer service analyst has been to Cape Carteret to assess the area and to retrieve maps of the area, proposed annexation areas and unincorporated zones. The customer service team will be reviewing all the data and will provide a report of the findings to the district manager, who will follow up with the town, she said.

Harkless sent out a letter about the zip code issue in the town’s March newsletter and has asked residents and property owners to respond to a poll on the issue. The poll asks if they’d want a zip code separate from Swansboro and also if they’d be in favor of sharing a zip code with Emerald Isle.