Each senator or representative on the Joint Legislative Economic Outlook & Revenue Assessment Committee has set his or her own estimate of state tax revenues for the coming year; the median of the committee members’ estimates came in very close to Gov. Butch Otter’s: $3.1963 billion for the current year, where Otter was at $3.1836 billion; and $3.3459 billion for fiscal year 2017, vs. Otter’s $3.3404 billion. That’s just $5.5 million over the governor’s estimate for 2017, or 2/10 of 1 percent.

Sen. Dan Schmidt, D-Moscow, moved to adopt the committee’s median for both years as its recommendation to JFAC. Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, offered a substitute motion to accept the governor’s figure. “I’m reluctant to go above the governor’s forecast,” Hill said. “We put these numbers down as best we could before we knew the December numbers, which were down. Not to get too alarmed over it, but it wasn’t up.”