How much is in the state’s checkbook? Some good news and uncertainty

BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — Coming up with a definitive amount of money the state has to spend is often a moving target, but lawmakers feel they’ve come as close to a fiscal outlook as possible during a Revenue Estimating Conference at the State Capitol Wednesday.

The commissioners and members met with economists who told them the estimate from December has increased slightly. That increase amounts to about $130 million more for the $12 billion general fund. Secretary of Revenue Richard Nelson appeared pleased with the forecast so far.

“It’s about a hundred million, that’s just kind of an adjustment based on how the collections are coming out, it’s not that significant when you’re looking at a $12 billion (general) fund, but at the end of the day it’s moving in the right direction, I think with the sweeping changes you don’t want to see it fall off, but you’ll continue to see positive growth going forward,” said Nelson.

But lawmakers at the conference were told the new tax code adopted last year during a special legislative session is still being analyzed. So the numbers could swing one way or another in the coming months.

“Right now, we are in the very early beginnings of this change in the tax code, and therefore my position is still kind of wait and see, we’ve had about three months of collections,” said Louisiana Chief Economist Manfred Dix.

Some conference members were interested in how the forecast would be impacted by a national recession. Economists said that was not part of the calculations for the state’s revenue estimate.

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