South Dakota lawmakers will have much less to spend this legislative session.
The Joint Committee on Appropriations approved revenue projections that are over $25 million less than what the governor had originally projected.
The state is seeing lower than expected growth in sales taxes due primarily to a downturn in the agriculture economy and lower tourism revenue over the last year.
Governor Dennis Daugaard says that’s been the case each month for fiscal year 20-17…
“I have not seen any recovery in the weakness. Every month you’ve seen since we adopted an estimate and the new year began July 1st, each month showed weakness and we’ve seen that weakness continue,” Daugaard says.
During his budget address, Daugaard says the state can make up for a lower than expected growth in this fiscal year with a mix of one time funds and other cost saving measures.
Once February revenue projections are accepted, the legislature must spend within that limit.
The Appropriations committee also voted to lower fiscal year 2018 projections by almost 28 million dollars.
The recent Amazon sales tax collections are not included in the revenue estimates.