The House and the Senate take turns releasing their budget proposals so that the House that goes first in the last primary budget year will go first the next time, and the House that releases their proposals first in the supplement year will go last for the next supplemental year.

This year, it is the House’s turn to release their budgets first, and they announced they would release all three – capital, operating, and transportation – on Monday, February 24, with a press conference at noon.

Despite the supposed turn-taking, the Senate released its capital budget last week and planned to release its operating budget proposal on Monday the 24, as well.

Both operating budget proposals will be heard in their respective committees at 3:30 on Monday, February 24, leaving very little time to review such long and complex documents.

While the transportation budgets will likely be on the grim side due to the revenue losses associated with the passage of Initiative 976 and capital budgets are much smaller in supplemental budget years, the operating budget writers now have the task of figuring out how to spend more money than initially expected.

The forecast released last week by the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council shows an increase of $606 million for the 2019-21 biennium and $536 million for 2021-23 biennium. Spikes in collected REET and estate taxes are primarily responsible for the increases.

Not included in the forecast is the recently announced decision by Boeing to rescind an existing tax break worth roughly $200 million per biennium to address an ongoing dispute with the World Trade Organization.

If the legislature needs help figuring out how to spend this embarrassment of riches, counties have plenty of ideas.