Expected revenues for the state budget are down from the Governor’s original projections in his 2016 budget address. Both the Legislative research council and Bureau of Finance and Management gave their updated revenue projections to members of the Appropriations committee. LRC expects revenues down by around 11 million dollars while the BFM expects revenues down around 9 million dollars. Revenues are also down for the 2015 budget. BFM shows a shortfall of around 16.9 million and LRC shows a shortfall around 14 million. Jim Terwilliger is an economist with the Bureau of Finance and Management. He says the soft revenue numbers are due to a downturn in the agricultural industry. Terwilliger says South Dakota’s workforce shortages are also a contributing factor.
"We have the third lowest unemployment rate in the nation I think only North Dakota and Nebraska have one that’s lower. And so that’s the issue that we’re seeing, we’ve seen over the last couple of years. And we’ve had this issue for a while where we don’t have enough qualified workers to fill those jobs to allow businesses to expand," says Terwilliger.
An Appropriations subcommittee is scheduled to adopt revenue projections at 4 pm today. The full Appropriations committee will consider the subcommittee recommendations and adopt revenue numbers on Wednesday.