The Economic Forum will be told the so-called “minor” General Fund revenues will be essentially flat for the coming budget cycle.
Those minor revenues should bring the state coffers $535.6 million by the end of this fiscal year and, for the 2018-2019 biennium, a hair more than $1 billion. Those are the projections approved Tuesday, Nov. 29 by the Technical Advisory Committee to the five-member Economic Forum. That body meets to review those projections and make projections for the major revenue streams on Dec. 6.
The state revenue projections, which will total something in excess of $7 billion, must be used by both the governor and the Legislature to build the state budget.
Most of the minor revenues are generated by a list of 12 revenue streams that range from more than $204 million in business license fees and $148.7 million in commercial filings to just $9 million in projected Athletic Commission fees. The 12 total just more than $877 million out of the $1 billion according to projections approved Tuesday.
Those projections, however, don’t include the potential reductions from tax credits that can be taken by Tesla, Faraday and other recipients of those benefits.
The minor revenues, which come from some 70 different sources, are projected to be a hair more than $3 million projected for this fiscal year but $1 million less than the current year for 2018 and $427,000 less in 2019.
The advisory committee spent most of its time Nov. 29 discussing those credits which Legislative Economist Russell Guindon said have been difficult to predict because the state doesn’t control when companies receiving them actually take them. Between Tesla and Faraday alone, they could claim $52.6 million in each of 2018 and 2019 as well as $35.5 million in this fiscal year. When all the other tax credit programs are added in, the total potential reduction in General Fund cash available for the rest of this year is $76.4 million plus $141.4 million in the coming biennium.
But Guindon and TAC members made it clear it’s unlikely that much will be collected by the various eligible businesses.
TAC chairman Bill Anderson asked Guindon and Budget Office Director Jim Wells to see if they can nail those estimated tax credits down a bit more before the Dec. 6 meeting. Members also pointed out they will get “another bite of the apple” when they do final revenue projections in May just before the 2017 Legislature ends.
