As promised, revenue report

The revenue report came in yesterday, Friday. The revenue news is OK, not great but OK. Economically things are starting to look up. People were spending during the holiday season and the ski areas were full. But some areas like real estate sales, gasoline/diesel purchase and the labor market still look fragile. Add to this the fact that for most families purchase power has dropped because of reduced employment or underemployment and it’s hard to find reason for cheering. Franklin County showed an unemployment rate of just over 6%.

Here it is: changes in the revenue forecasts allow us to add about $27 million to the bottom line for fiscal year 2011. For next year, fiscal 2012, the year we are planning for and which will begin July 1, 2011, we can add about $9 million to the bottom line in additional revenue expected.

The tricky part will be convincing those legislators who want to spend that we shouldn’t use this money to continue making government larger. If we spend this on new programs the deficit will not shrink.

Rep. Carolyn Branagan
Franklin-1
Vermont House of Representatives