At its quarterly meeting this morning, the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council (ERFC) updated its forecasts of state revenues. These new forecasts increase the amount available to budget writers over the current and next bienniums combined by a total of $337 million.

Budget reports from legislative fiscal committees typically roll up four accounts: the general fund–state, the education legacy trust account, the Washington opportunity pathways account and the workforce education investment account. Budgeteers refer to this roll-up as “funds subject to the outlook” (NGFO). Under the four-year balanced budget requirement, positive ending balances are required for both the current and the following bienniums for the NGFO overall.

For the NGFO, the forecast for the current 2023–25 biennium increased by $121.8 million to $67,005.1 million, while the forecast for the 2025–2027 biennium increased by $215.4 million to $71,721.2 million.
The initial forecast of revenue for the 2027-29 biennium is $76,948 million.

From 2021–2023 to 2023–25, the forecasted NGFO growth is 3.5%. From 2023–25 to 2025–2027, the forecasted NGFO growth is 7.0%. From 2027–25 to 2025–2029, the forecasted NGFO growth is 7.3%.

As always, the ERFC also adopted optimistic and pessimistic alternative revenue forecasts for the general fund–state (which produces 95% of total NGFO revenue). Under the optimistic scenario, revenue exceeds the baseline forecast by $2,812 million during 2023–25 and by $6,321 during 2025-27. Under the pessimistic scenario, revenue falls short of the baseline forecast by $3,417 million during 2023–25. And by $6,997 million during 2007-09. The ERFC assigns a 15 percent probability to the optimistic scenario and a 30 percent probability to the pessimistic scenario.

The handout from the meeting is here; TVW video of the meeting is here.