Panel updates Delaware revenue forecast

(AP) – The panel that sets Delaware’s official revenue projections downgraded its estimate for the current year by about $17 million.
    
Monday’s estimate for fiscal 2015 by the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council is the final one for the year and will be used by administration officials to fashion a proposed fiscal 2016 budget that Gov. Jack Markell will unveil in January.
    
The panel’s revenue estimate for fiscal 2016, which starts July 1, was basically flat, at $3.88 billion. That’s down from an estimated $3.92 billion for the current year.
    
Some of the major changes in this year’s estimate were attributed to higher refunds of abandoned property collected by the state and lower gross receipts taxes because of the decline in oil and gas prices.