Minnesota’s office of Management and Budget (MMB) on Monday released its February revenue forecast, which provides information and an outlook for Minnesota’s financial picture. The report projects a surplus of $19 billion for the next budget cycle, which begins in July. This is nearly $1.5 billion more than the $17.6 billion surplus reported in November.

Last week, the legislature passed a bill to automatically add inflation to forecast computations. This spent $1.5 billion of the projected surplus into more government spending. With that change, the net surplus number is $17.5 billion.

Senator Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) issued the following statement:

“If their early session insanity is any indicator, it is frightening to imagine what kind of budget Democrats will write with the $17.5 billion of the surplus that they have yet to spend. After spending $1.5 billion right off the top, the Democrat majority will have every spending proposal on the table, no matter how wasteful, unproven, or extreme it might be. The only thing we can be pretty sure of is that taxpayers won’t get much, if any, tax relief. That’s disappointing. The surplus belongs to the taxpayers who built it. Giving it back needs to be our number one priority.”