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Governor Gordon Urges Cautious Approach to Spending in Response to Revenue Report
The Consensus Revenue Estimating Group released the July 2023 revenue update Friday and the pacing report shows total revenue collections for the General Fund and Budget Reserve Account exceed the January 2023 CREG forecast by $176.1 million. In response to the CREG report, Governor Mark Gordon called for a cautious approach to state spending and said he will continue to apply conservative principles to budgeting as he prepares his next two-year budget proposal.
While high natural gas prices from 2022 resulted in strong revenues, prices and volumes have been falling steadily since reaching record highs one year ago. This change could reverse the strong revenues from a year ago. In addition, Wyoming continues to face an ongoing threat to its legacy mineral industries through the Biden Administration’s anti-fossil fuel policies that harm economic growth and impact revenues in Wyoming and across the country.
The Governor noted another key factor that is part of the revenue and budget picture is that Wyoming was able to recover $584 million of COVID-19-related expenditures from 2020 with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Revenue Replacement funds. In the next budget, Gordon said $330 million in state general fund dollars must be restored to maintain existing government services that are currently funded with ARPA Revenue Replacement funds. Governor Gordon will release his next two-year budget proposal in November.
Dennis Fox
July 31, 2023 at 2:15 pm
The best way to encourage our state gov’t to have a “more cautious approach” to spending, is to ensure they have less access to our money. We can vote to lower the sales tax to 5% and urge our rep’s to cap, or otherwise limit, property taxes. If gov’t has less of our hard-money in “their” coffers, they will be forced to spend less. Aren’t we all more “cautious” in spending, when we have less in the bank? It’s the same with government!