Projection: ‘minor’ adds nearly $1 bil

The Technical Advisory Committee to the Economic Forum on Wednesday projected the state will get $940 million from its so-called “minor” revenue sources in the coming two-year budget cycle.

The $939,604,470 is some $81 million less than the current revenues from those sources. The minor revenues don’t include the major revenues: The gaming, sales, insurance premium and modified business taxes, casino live entertainment and real property transfer taxes.

The TAC recommends to the forum what to do with the more than 70 other revenue streams that flow into the General Fund.

The Fiscal Division, Budget Office and agencies that manage the different taxes managed to agree on what to do with all but one of the minor revenues — the volatile Net Proceeds of Mines tax that, last fiscal year, fell more than $70 million short of what was projected.

The fiscal and taxation departments were close in their projections for the coming two years, but the Budget Office turned in projections that were significantly lower. All three agreed the price of gold should remain above $1,200 for the next couple of years.

But Budget Division Economist Susanna Powers turned in a projection that predicted a much more significant drop in gold production than Fiscal or Taxation.

Where those two agencies argued gold production would remain at 4.7-4.9 million ounces a year, Budget had the total production dropping to just 2.3 million ounces by fiscal 2017.

TAC member John Sherman, Washoe County’s fiscal chief, said that was just too wide a spread.

“I personally would feel more confortable averaging the agency and fiscal forecasts,” he said. “Budget’s forecast is so much of an outlier.”

Even Director of Administration Julia Teska agreed saying until more analysis is done, she would support Sherman’s motion.

The vote was unanimous.

As for the rest of the 70-plus revenue streams, the overall pattern of forecasts indicates the economy will continue to slowly improve. Most contained small, incremental increases in each of the coming two years.

The TAC will present the recommendations to the Economic Forum in a week. The forum doesn’t make a final decision on total General Fund projections for the coming budget cycle until Dec. 2.

Those projections must be used by the Sandoval administration in building the 2016-2017 budget.