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Eye On Boise

JFAC votes unanimously to accept revenue committee’s report, which adopts gov’s figures

Sen. Shawn Keough presents the revenue committee report to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Friday morning. (Betsy Russell)
Sen. Shawn Keough presents the revenue committee report to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Friday morning. (Betsy Russell)

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted unanimously this morning to accept the report of the Economic Outlook & Revenue Assessment Committee, which adopted Gov. Butch Otter’s revenue forecast of $2.7991 billion for fiscal year 2014, a 5.3 percent increase. The committee report says the figure “is a reasonable forecast for revenues.” Co-Chair Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, told JFAC the panel concluded the figure “is also reasonable for the purpose of beginning the general fund budgeting process. We recognize that it’s early in the session, we’re in the first week of the session, and this is a snapshot in time. Although the governor’s projection is a little more than the committee median, we felt at this point in time it was a good place to start.”

JFAC Co-Chair Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, said, “It is customary for us to accept the committee report. That does not mean that we are budgeting to any number, it just means that we are accepting it, and then we’ll proceed. You will have another opportunity to select a number by which we will set a budget to, based on the information we have at that time, based on this report, based on other information. So with that in mind, I move that we accept the committee report.”



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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