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Oregon's Kicker Is Projected To Kick

A view of the west side of the Oregon State Capitol in Salem.
OregonDOT
/
Flickr
A view of the west side of the Oregon State Capitol in Salem.

Oregonians could be getting a kicker when they file their taxes next year. State economists said Tuesday that revenues for the current budget cycle are on track to exceed projections by a wide enough margin to trigger Oregon's unique kicker law.

But state economist Mark McMullen said it's not a sure thing just yet.

"This is a little bit maddening for this forecast, because we're coming up to the very end of the biennium, we only have a few weeks left,” he said. “But we're still not 100 percent sure, not even close to 100 percent sure, that we will actually have a kicker."

The economic forecast also showed that state coffers are expected to be about $187 million fatter over the next two years than the previous forecast showed.

That means the budget shortfall for the next two years is a bit smaller than previously thought. It’s down to about $1.4 billion.

Copyright 2017 Northwest News Network

Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.