HB2791 Summary

• Establishes a state expenditure limit beginning fiscal year 2013-2014 capping budgeted general fund revenues at the lower of: the maximum budgeted amount from two years prior, or actual state general fund revenues from two years prior, adjusted annually based on a twenty-year rolling average of revenue growth excluding the highest and lowest two years.

• Requires the Joint Legislative Budget Committee to determine and publish annually by January 1 the actual state general fund revenues from the preceding fiscal year and estimates of maximum allowable budgeted revenues for the following fiscal year.

• Directs disposition of excess general fund revenues in priority order: emergency costs from catastrophic disasters, debt service and deferred payment obligations, deposits to the budget stabilization fund, and tax refunds to individual income tax filers.

• Allows adjustments to the expenditure limit when governmental functions and funding responsibilities are transferred between state, federal, tribal, or local governments, or when revenues are diverted from the general fund to other state funds.

• Modifies the budget stabilization fund by replacing the prior growth rate-based transfer mechanism with a requirement that appropriations to the fund be made from excess revenues under the new expenditure limit provisions.