DEFAC Forecast Shows Minimal Growth, P3 Board Meets for the First Time

by James DeChene

This week DEFAC met, and forecast an additional $64 million in revenue for FY19, if the budget were to remain the same. While positive news, the forecast did not consider the contract negotiations with Department of Corrections on salary increases, nor did it factor in student enrollment numbers and new Medicaid rates, which won’t be released until later this fall.  You may recall from last year that the student enrollment and Medicaid increases resulted in an additional $150 million the state budget writers needed to factor in, and represented about 40% of last year’s budget gap. Those numbers will be available for consideration at the upcoming December 18th meeting, which will also be the forecast Governor Carney will use when crafting his recommended budget.
 
Also this week, the board of the Prosperity Partnership, the P3 created to replace DEDO, met for the first time. The organization is officially up and running, and now comes the work of getting itself operational. The coming months will flesh out how the entity will operate.  We will continue to update our members as more information is available.