The Legislative Analyst’s Office has just issued the following report:
The 2015-16 Budget: Overview of the Governor’s Budget
In the Governor’s 2015-16 budget proposal, the administration raises its revenue estimates, and this results in a multibillion-dollar influx of new funds for schools and community colleges under the Proposition 98 minimum funding guarantee. The Governor’s plan identifies cost pressures and budget risks in health and human services programs, and new program commitments outside of Proposition 98 are limited. The Governor’s proposal to pay off the state’s retiree health liabilities over the next few decades would, if funded, address the last of state government’s large unaddressed liabilities.
We conclude the state likely will collect more tax revenue in 2014-15 than the administration now estimates. Barring a sustained stock market drop, an additional 2014-15 revenue gain of $1 billion to $2 billion seems likely in addition to the Governor’s budget projection. Even bigger gains of a few billion dollars more are possible in 2014-15. These additional 2014-15 revenues will go largely or entirely to schools and community colleges and could result in a few billion dollars of higher ongoing state payments to schools. Whether tax revenues grow further, stagnate, or, in the worst case, decline in 2015-16 will depend in large part on trends in volatile capital gains and business income.
In the coming days, supplemental materials will be posted to the LAO’s California Economy and Taxes blog (at www.lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax or @LAOEconTax on Twitter) and to the EdBudget portion of the LAO website.
This report (44 pages) is available using the following link: