In line with New York’s motto — “Excelsior” — the state assumes its tax receipts are headed ever upward.
Late last week, Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders announced they had agreed to a consensus forecast adding $200 million to the combined receipts already budgeted for fiscal years 2012-13 (which ends on March 31) and 2013-14. Cuomo’s Executive Budget already had assumed healthy tax receipts growth of 4.8 percent— so the consensus simply pushes the envelope a little further out there, in an arguably riskier direction.
Among the parties, Assembly Democrats had forecast receipts would be $484 million higher than the governor’s projections, while the Senate Finance Committee forecast $245 million more. Assembly Republicans suggested a number roughly $200 $330 million lower than the governor’s forecast.
As usual, the consensus was effectively a dart thrown roughly at the middle of the conflicting estimates. But the underlying economic assumptions don’t necessarily represent the mid-point of the consensus among forecasters outside New York State government. For example, theCongressional Budget Office thinks real GDP will increase this year by 1.4 percent, while the Albany consensus is more than one-third higher at 1.9 percent.**
New York’s all-funds state tax collections have fallen short of enacted budget projections for six straight years. Nonetheless, the consensus memo from Cuomo and the legislative leaders said they had agreed that “upside risks” to the forecast “modestly outweighed downside risks” in the year ahead.
Not counting that $200 million consensus add, here is the past and projected path of total tax receipts stretching from 1970s through projections for 2017.
This chart is one of many you can generate and download using the “Explore the New York State Budget” app at the Empire Center’s transparency website, www.SeeThroughNY.net, which has been updated to reflect the governor’s 30-day amendments.
PS — The consensus revenue forecasting process was only formalized as part of a 2007 budget reform, and the results continue to have a slapdash feel. While DOB documents and forecasts produced by the Senate and Assembly majorities were, as usual, polished and professional-looking, the consensus forecasting memo posted online is a crooked, smudgy graphical image scanned from a print document, which means it’s digitally so fat that it will choke a typical desktop printer. Apparently no one could be bothered to use the “save as pdf” function.
** The Conference Board is forecasting real GDP growth of 1.6 percent, but the Blue Chip Consensus matches Albany’s at 1.9 percent.
You may also like
Highlights of Albany’s Bloated and Belated Budget
The state Legislature approved the last of nine budget bills Thursday evening, 38 days after the start of the fiscal year. Here are some highlights of the fiscal impact of final spending plan:
Top lines
Read More
New York’s Proposed ‘MCO Tax’ Would Generate a Fraction of What Lawmakers Expected
The Hochul administration's proposed "MCO tax" would generate far less than the $4 billion in extra federal aid anticipated by state lawmakers when they approved the concept this spring, according to documents obtained by t Read More
How 1199 Earns its Reputation as Albany’s No. 1 Labor Power Broker
For the fourth time in six years, the president of New York's largest health-care union, George Gresham of 1199SEIU, has won the top spot on the "Labor Power 100" list from City &am Read More
New York Runs Away from the Pack on Medicaid Spending
New York's per capita Medicaid spending jumped 14 percent in 2023, moving it further ahead of the rest of the country, recently released nationwide data show.
In the federal fiscal year that ended last September, New York spent $94.6 billion Read More
Albany’s New Health Insurance Tax Comes with Few Limits
The newly enacted state budget imposes a multibillion-dollar tax on health insurance without specifying who must pay how much – leaving those basic details to be decided later by the health commissioner in negotiation wit Read More
Hochul’s ‘Straight Talk’ on Medicaid Isn’t Straight Enough
Arguably the biggest Medicaid news in Governor Hochul's budget presentation was about the current fiscal year, not the next one: The state-run health plan is running substantially over budget.
Read More
New York’s Medicaid Spending Is Running Billions Over Budget
New York's Medicaid program ran billions of dollars over budget during the first half of the fiscal year, adding to signs of a brewing fiscal crisis in Albany.
According to the fro Read More
At mid-year, NY still far below most states in pandemic jobs recovery
New York has added private-sector jobs in all but three of the 38 months since the COVID-19 outbreak of March 2020—but the Empire State remains below its pre-pandemic employment level and continues to trail the national recovery.
On a seasonally adju Read More