The Legislature and Gov. Kevin Stitt have $85.5 million less to appropriate for fiscal year 2021 than was appropriated for FY2020, the current fiscal year, according to numbers approved Tuesday by the Board of Equalization.
 
When the board met in December, the numbers showed an increase of $9.0 million for FY2021’s budget. Declining oil and natural gas prices, however, pushed down anticipated collections from those sources, along with decreases in personal income, sales and use tax collections, according to information presented to the board Tuesday.
 
Despite the decline, total spending authority for FY2021 will be approximately $8.2 billion, just 1.0 percent less than was appropriated for the current fiscal year. The numbers serve as the starting point for talks between the Legislature and Stitt on the FY2021 budget.
 
Included in the $8.2 billion is $310.4 million of cash carried over from FY2019. Secretary of Budget Mike Mazzei warned in early February that was a one-time influx of cash that would not be available for subsequent fiscal years.
 
Mazzei warned then that the February estimate could drop anywhere from $25 million to $50 million.
 
The board also was presented with an updated projection for the current fiscal year General Revenue Fund receipts that shows collections coming in 4.6 percent or $319.6 million less than was estimated in June. That is just within the 5.0 percent cushion built into the appropriations process that is necessary to avoid a revenue shortfall that triggers automatic across-the-board agency budget reductions.
 
The Office of Management and Enterprise Services reported Feb. 11 that General Revenue Fund (GRF) collections over the first seven months of FY2020 were $28.8 million or 0.7 percent below the estimate.