Governor, legislators 'cautiously optimistic' about state revenues
Less than three weeks before proposing a revised budget to deal with a $1.5 billion revenue shortfall, Gov. Terry McAuliffe says he is “cautiously optimistic” that state tax collections are rebounding.
McAuliffe, appearing Monday with Republican budget leaders in the General Assembly, said he is especially pleased with the apparent recovery of income taxes withheld from payroll, which account for nearly two-thirds of the state general fund budget.
“We clearly don’t have to cut as much as we thought we would,” he said after a closed-door meeting with the Governor’s Advisory Council on Revenue Estimates.
The chairmen of the General Assembly’s budget committees — who are members of the advisory council — also adopted a tone of cautious optimism about state revenues, which rose 3.5 percent ahead of the forecast in the first four months of the fiscal year that began July 1.
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