Budget experts say state may be slowly recovering

State budget experts say the Iowa economy may finally be turning the corner. Legislative Fiscal Bureau director Dennis Prouty says tax collections in the present budgeting year will probably be static, good news after a three-year decline. He says he thought we’d hit the bottom and were on the way up, but that didn’t happen. He says it appears that may be happening now. Prouty and the other members of the State Revenue Estimating Conference predict tax revenue for the next budgeting year should increase by about one-point-six percent. That means lawmakers and the governor will have about 80-million more dollars to spend than they had in the budget state government’s operating under today. Prouty says there’s been an increase in personal income tax payments as well as a slight increase in corporate income. A troubling spot, though, is state sales tax revenues. Prouty says the growth in Internet purchases, which are not subject to the sales tax, is cause for concern. He says Internet sales are increasing, taking away tax money.The Revenue Estimating Conference met this morning in Des Moines.