The state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council (EFRC) yesterday issued its monthly Economic and Revenue Update (available here). The November Update is the second since EFRC’s September revenue forecast, and, as was the case in October, collections have come in above forecast.

Major General Fund-State (GF-S) revenues for the October 11, 2010 – November 10, 2010 collection period were $18.3 million (1.6%) higher than our September forecast. Revenue Act collections continued to show year-over-year growth but came in $11.6 million (1.2%) below the forecast.

For the two months combined, general fund-state revenues are $20.8 million above forecast. The positive “varience” is entirely accounted for by early payment of property taxes and greater than forecasted transfers of unclamed property to the GF-S.  Economically sensitive Revenue Act taxes (sales tax, use tax B&O tax, etc.) were $9.7 million below forecast for the two-month period.

EFRC will issue a revised revenue forecast next Thursday (November 18). Based on the last two month’s collections experience and the preliminary economic forecast that was released a week ago (available here), which projects slightly slower growth in income and employment going forward than had been forecast in the September economic forecast, one might expect to see EFRC reduce the revenue forecast. However, EFRC intends to revise the economic forecast to incorporate new economic data (e.g. 3rd quarter GDP and October national employment, which were better than had been expected).