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Budget Director Says Surplus Is Better than Expected

a photo of DeWine and Murnieks at a podium
KAREN KASLER
/
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU
Gov. DeWine's budget director updates the public on surplus projections.

Total state tax collections were up 20 percent over estimates for April and 3.1 percent for May.

That’s leading the state budget director to revise her projections for a budget surplus for the close of the fiscal year at the end of this month.

In March, Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget director Kimberly Murnieks turned out to be a little off in saying the two-year budget cycle would end with a surplus of $845 million. She said it’s actually better than she predicted – revenues are running 3 percent over forecasts. And for the full two-year period, Murnieks said, “We are currently over original projections by just around a billion dollars.”

Murnieks said her office is now updating final projections, but doesn’t have those numbers yet. But she said she hopes they will convince lawmakers to keep DeWine’s budget investments. Legislative researchers had suggested a much less rosy forecast, and recommended cutting the spending in DeWine’s budget by 25 percent.

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.