North Carolina forecasts $1.4 billion budget surplus
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s government should collect higher revenues during this fiscal year and next than what is projected in the current two-year state budget, according to a new forecast.
Economists for the General Assembly and Gov. Roy Cooper’s state budget office predict collections will exceed revenue budgeted for the year ending
June 30 by $413 million, or a 1.2% increase. And state coffers will bring in $1 billion more in the fiscal year starting
July 1 than what was anticipated, or a 3% increase.
The budget law enacted by the Republican-controlled
General Assembly had planned for a slight decline in revenue from this fiscal year to the next, in part due to tax cuts.
A legislative staff economist’s email to lawmakers attributes the upgrade to stronger than anticipated individual income tax collections and modestly higher sales tax collections.
The memo cites low unemployment, wage growth, additional consumer spending and rising prices.
The new forecast now expects $34.14 billion in state operating revenues this fiscal year and $34.37 billion next year. The legislative economist warned that April 15 income tax collections can be difficult to predict and that a revised forecast was possible after detailed numbers are received early next month.
The news gives legislators more wiggle room to address financial needs as the General Assembly returns next week for this year’s chief work session.
The legislature’s primary job during the “short” session in even-numbered years is to adjust the second year of the two-year budget. Cooper, a Democrat barred by term limits from running again this year, will propose his own budget adjustments.
Cooper allowed the current two-year budget to become law without his signature, turning away from all he disliked within it because the proposal finalized the Medicaid expansion he had sought for years. Some budget provisions speed up individual income tax cuts.