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The Independent Fiscal Office submitted material to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees in advance of its scheduled budget hearings on Tuesday, February 20.
The hearings packet contains a brief background on the Independent Fiscal Office and its responsibilities, along with a list of the reports and analyses published since January 2017. It also provides data regarding the economic and revenue outlook, demographics, pensions, and natural gas.
Section 604-B(a)(8) of Act 100 of 2016 (Act of July 20, 2016, P.L. 849, No. 100) requires the Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) to:
Provide a cost analysis for the current fiscal year and remaining subsequent fiscal years of the impact of each proposed collective bargaining agreement under the jurisdiction of the Governor prior to execution, including the costs to cover public employee wages, benefits, pensions and working conditions that have been reduced in writing under section 701 of the act of July 23, 1970 (P.L. 563, No. 195), known as the Public Employe Relations Act.
In response to a legislative request, the IFO compiled certain data presented in the Governor’s Executive Budget for various years to produce a multi-year history of receipts and disbursements for selected special funds. The letter identifies certain special fund budgeting and reporting issues that should be considered when analyzing the data. The letter also provides computations for a potential budget increase factor based on the annual increases in population and the consumer price index.
The Commonwealth collected $3.1 billion in General Fund revenues for January, an increase of $494.6 million (18.7%) compared to January 2017. Fiscal year-to-date revenues were $17.4 billion, an increase of $1.27 billion (7.9%) from the prior year.
This report uses the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Federation of Tax Administrators to facilitate a comparison of state and local tax systems across the fifty states. The report examines (1) the relative state and local tax burden across states, (2) the distribution of state and local taxes across revenue sources (e.g., income, sales and property) and (3) state debt levels.
The IFO has posted the schedule for upcoming performance-based budgets and tax credit reviews.
The Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) has released a mid-year update of its revenue estimate for fiscal year (FY) 2017-18. The revised estimate is $34.780 billion, which is $35 million higher than the IFO’s November 2017 estimate. As part of the mid-year update, the IFO also provides an advance look at revenue projections for the next fiscal year. For FY 2018-19, revenues are projected to be $33.914 billion, a decrease of -2.5 percent over the current year. The presentation also addresses the impact of recent federal tax law changes on the Pennsylvania budget. The changes affect estimates for corporate net income, personal income and sales tax revenues in FY 2017-18 and FY 2018-19. The office will update the estimate in its next round of revenue projections to be released in early May.
Director Matthew Knittel gave a presentation to the Task Force on Private Sector Retirement Security on the implications of aging for the Pennsylvania economy.
The IFO responds to a request regarding the percentage increase in spending allowed under House Bill 110.
This research brief uses recent data published by the Department of Environmental Protection to project CY 2017 Impact Fee collections in Pennsylvania. Revised for technical factor on 2/22/2018.