The Board of Revenue Estimates voted this week to write down revenues by approximately $73 million – $18 million in fiscal 2019 and $55 million in fiscal 2020. With this decrease, the State will still have more than $1 billion in unspent revenue as it approaches the 2019 General Assembly Session.
From the Comptroller’s prepared statement:
“At our September meeting, this Board voted to increase our revenue projections by more than $700 million. Thanks to a more than half-a-billion-dollar surplus after we closed the books on FY 2018, the state finds itself with more than $1 billion in unspent revenue as we approach the 2019 Session.
Included in the revenues is the considerable inflow of revenue resulting from Wayfair Supreme Court ruling and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. And as we chart a course for the state’s fiscal future, it is incumbent upon our policymakers to make thoughtful decisions on the path forward when it comes to how we spend the taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.
The Comptroller expressed caution with using the unspent revenues and instead advised that it be placed the State’s rainy day fund.