Next week state lawmakers will set revenue targets for the current fiscal year and next fiscal year.
That budget setting comes as the state is bringing in a little more money than anticipated.
According to the Bureau of Finance and Management, the state is bringing in about $7 million dollars more than anticipated for fiscal year 2020.
Sales tax collections for January—which reflect December sales—were up by almost ten percent. The department attributes that mostly to a later Thanksgiving. Christmas sales activity occurred mostly in December.
This is good news for lawmakers as they look to start crafting the state budget.
Democratic State Senator Reynold Nesiba sits in the appropriations committee. He says he’s focused on inflationary increase for the big three.
“For my caucus, we think we should follow the law,” Nesiba says. “We think its essential that we put at least a cost of living adjustment—not a raise—into the formula for education, teacher salaries. That state employees get a cost of living adjustment and that we do something for our community support providers as well.”
Nesiba says he’d also like to see pay increases for some state employees who are making about $12 and $13 an hour.
Republican leadership say they’ll wait and see what priorities get funded once the budget is set. There are disputes between the governor’s office and some legislators over the cost of enacting a hemp program.
The governor contends it will cost about $3.5 million the first year. House Majority leader Lee Qualm has been pushing the hemp legislation. He says the state needs to take into account that hemp will moved through the state regardless if legislators pass the bill.
“We need to be ready for the interstate commerce and also for the tribes being able to grow it,” Qualm says. “I don’t envision having any problems, because the big numbers they’re working into their budgets already. They know that’s happening.”
Qualm says legislators will come up with one time money to fund the hemp program.