March Revenue Projections – Trends After Six Months
On March 20 Legislative Council Chief Economist Mike Mauer presented the quarterly revenue projection for March 2006. The March figures are the last prior to the JBC sending the Long Bill to the General Assembly (this year the House of Representatives will be the first house to take up the Long Bill, after which it will move to the Senate).
This issue brief paper briefly reviews the trends over the past six months in some of the major revenue components, using the General Fund Overview as presented by Legislative Council. Three revenue estimates, those from September 2005, December 2005, and March 2006 are compared. The September numbers were, of course, prepared prior to the November 1 election in which Referendum C was passed by the voters, but were based on the assumption that Ref. C and D would pass; the December numbers were based on three additional months of revenues plus the knowledge that Ref. C had passed and Ref. D had not passed; and the March numbers take into consideration three additional months of revenue experience.
Released April 13, 2006

