Deciding How Much Money We Have

Today the Joint Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee meets to help determine how much money it thinks the state of Idaho will make for the 2010 fiscal year -- that is, between July 2009 and June 2010.  

Typically the committee hears testimony from a number of economists and representatives from various industries. For example, it was hearing about the slowdown in construction last year that led the committee to be conservative about how much revenue to expect in 2008. 

This committee then makes a recommendation to the full Legislature about what to use as a target figure for revenue. It may or may not agree with what the Governor chooses.

Cliff Bayer, who is also on the budgeting committee (which spends the money) is co-chair of this committee. 

All the material for the committee is here: <http://legislature.idaho.gov/budget/EORAC/index.htm>

The material for last year's committee is here: <http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/budget/EORAC/2008/index.htm>

To watch the hearings streaming on the Internet, go to http://www.idahoptv.org/leglive/> 

You can also click on the link to the right in the blog roll.

Something amusing is that each legislator on the committee makes a prediction about the year's revenues (on a percentage basis) and the following year, those predictions are looked at to see who was the most accurate.