If you are looking to prepare a budget, you need to know how much revenue you likely will have to support it.
As the New Mexico legislature and administration prepare their ideas for a state budget for FY 2022, they generally pull together a consortium called the CREG – the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group.
The CREG is made up of economists from the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC), the Department of Finance and Administration (DFA), the Taxation and Revenue Department (TRD), and the Department of Transportation (DOT).
A key focus of the group is reviewing and reporting on the anticipated fiscal and economic bearing of various local, regional, national, and global market conditions on available state revenues.
Obviously, the current pandemic, COVID-19, and the sharp downward trend in oil and gas pricing are being intensely monitored and weigh heavily upon current estimates of the CREG.
The CREG reports to both the legislative Finance Committee (LFC), which reviews and prepares the legislature’s first draft of a state budget, and the Revenue Stabilization and Tax Policy Committee (RSTPC).
The RSTPC is another joint interim legislative committee. It is directed to “examine the statutes, constitutional provisions, regulations and court decisions governing revenue stabilization and tax policy in New Mexico and recommend legislation or changes if any are found to be necessary …”.
Last Friday, the RSTPC met and heard from some of the CREG team.
The report was a bit more optimistic than reports the legislature and administration had received preliminarily from the CREG prior to the June Special Session, when the state budget was downsized.
A more detailed analysis of the Friday RSTPC meeting will be published here on the CWA website in the next day or two.
But for now, we are providing links to various reports and documents that are presented by the CREG and other parties which are reviewed and used as a guidance by the LFC and the RSTPC.
Starting this weekend more information and links to important budget related documents will be posted on the CWA website as the budget process begins to pick up speed.
TOMORROW: CWA Series on State Budget Scenarios – Part 3, Paying Attention to the “Work Plans” of interim committees.