Budget panel reduces estimate of tax collections

A three-person panel today issued a new report on the state’s budget picture, and again reduced their estimate of how much tax money the state will collect this budgeting year. The prediction: the state will take in about 22-million dollars less, but will still have an ending balance of nearly eight million dollars. House Republican Leader Christopher Rants of Sioux City says it’s too soon to tell whether more state budget cuts are necessary, but he says he’s very nervous about the narrow budget margin. Rants says the state’s Medicaid program is operating in the red now. He says D-H-S is hemorrhaging money and he says they have to figure out how to stop that or the budget balance “is disappeared.”