The newest projections from the Revenue Estimating Conference is positioning Iowa to grow its economy even more.

The REC reports its financial revenue estimates each quarter as to what they believe the state’s overall revenues will be for the next fiscal year. District 24 Senator Jesse Green says the newest REC numbers went from $9.1 billion to $9.2 billion in anticipated state revenues. He points out that even before March’s report, lawmakers were using a slightly lower figure to base their budgetary discussions on for the next fiscal year that begins on July 1st.

“The revenue was at $8.9 billion. The reason why that number was less is because our tax bill is going to start to take effect pretty soon, so there would be a little bit of a drop of revenue. And after (the latest) estimate that (revenue) number is higher at $9.15 billion. So it seems like everything was coming about $100 million more than estimated. So that’s good news, our economy is growing.”    

Green notes that with these projections, lawmakers can start to finalize their budgets, including one committee that he serves on.

“I’m on the education sub-appropriation committee and our initial numbers that we were working off of was kind of a standard 2.5-percent increase in every category of that budget. I anticipate that we’ll probably stick with that conservative number and stay within our targets.”   

Green adds that they also have an over $2 billion surplus and is confident that they can fill any financial gap that may be caused when the tax cuts start to be phased in. Green says  there’s enough funds available for emergencies or making other changes.