Governor Sam Brownback’s budget director believes Kansas officials need to study how they estimate future state tax collections. As KPR’s Stephen Koranda reports, the comments were made just before new July revenue numbers came in below the mark.
Over the last year, Kansas tax collections have come up short of the estimates 10 times, and beat the estimates twice.
Some of the misses were small, but four times over the last year the state’s monthly tax collections were at least $20 million below expectations. Brownback’s budget director, Shawn Sullivan, helps create the estimates.
“I can’t provide an answer at this point as to what we should be doing differently, if anything. It’s something that I plan on talking to other states about, and my colleagues around the country, here in the next month or two,” says Sullivan.
Others believe the state’s policies are leading to the instability. The top Democrat in the Kansas House, Tom Burroughs, has said the state’s tax policy has put Kansas finances on unstable ground.