Finally: An ‘up month’ for state revenue

One of the reasons lawmakers scurried to finish their session was they wanted to be done before the next set of tax revenue figures came out, after January and February collections came in below projections, fueling concern over the economy and zeal to cut budgets even more deeply. March isn’t a terribly significant month as an indicator - it’s typically a third of the biggie, April - but preliminary numbers now show it’s coming in above projections to the tune of $15.1 million. Even more significantly, the portion of that total that comes from the personal income tax was up by 50 percent compared to expectations. “It’s encouraging to have an up month,” Wayne Hammon, Otter’s budget chief, told the Idaho Statesman’s Dan Popkey. You can read Popkey’s full report here .