Brief⁽¹⁾

H.B. 2828 would provide a "trigger" mechanism which under certain circumstances would transfer unanticipated State General Fund (SGF) revenues to a new fund, the State Debt Reduction Fund (SDRF). If the sum of (1) the amount by which actual SGF receipts for a given fiscal year exceeds the final adjusted estimate of the consensus revenue estimating group; and (2) any increase in the SGF consensus estimate for the next fiscal year made on or before December 4 (but generally in November) exceeds $50 million, all but $25 million would be transferred to the SDRF. All expenditures from the SDRF would be required to be made for retirement or defeasement of bonds issued for programs and capital improvement projects.

Background

The bill would have no immediately discernible SGF fiscal note, as the consensus estimating procedure attempts to forecast actual receipts.

It is important to bear in mind that unanticipated revenue events which come to light between the April and November estimating conferences obviously could help activate the "trigger." Examples of such events include a $20.4 million inheritance tax payment late in FY 1994 and the summer 1997 announcement of unusually large capital gains liability by Western Resources.

The following table indicates that if the bill had been law, the trigger mechanism would have provided transfers in five of the previous six years.

1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/fulltext-bill.html.