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Lawmakers review governor's FY2025–26 budget as revenue forecasts rise and choices narrow
Summary
Legislative services staff told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee the governor's recommended budget projects higher revenues for FY2025 and FY2026 but maintains a roughly $700 million structural surplus that lawmakers must allocate among tax relief, program growth and one-time spending.
Keith Bybee, the Legislative Services Office division manager for budget policy analysis, briefed the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on the governor's FY2025 and FY2026 budget outlook and the Legislative Budget Book materials available on SharePoint. "My presentation ... is going to cover, FY 2025 and FY 2026 budget overview," Bybee said as he opened the briefing.
Bybee said the governor's baseline projects general fund revenues of about $5.9 billion in the near term and showed a persistent gap between projected revenues and projected expenditures across the business cycle. Using the governor's numbers, he said the state sees a structural balance on the order of $600 million to $700 million for 2025 and 2026, a figure the briefing materials repeatedly emphasized as the core policy choice for the session.
Why it matters: the surplus creates competing choices for lawmakers, Bybee said. "How to balance that…
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