LINCOLN -- Not bad.
That was the assessment of the October report for state tax receipts -- an indicator of the state's economy -- by State Tax Commissioner Doug Ewald on Tuesday.
The report showed a slight rebound.
In October, state tax receipts were down only 1.8 percent, or $3.5 million, from forecasts done last April.
The 1.8 percent decline, Ewald said, "is not a bad number" compared to the months of August and September, when tax receipts fell 4.7 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively, below projections.
Those dismal returns prompted Gov. Dave Heineman to call state lawmakers back for a special session last week. About $332 million needs to be cut from state spending to reflect projections of less tax revenue over the next two years.
Ewald said Tuesday that November's tax receipts are tracking at projections so far, but it will take a few months of that kind of "smoothing out" before anyone can say the recession has bottomed out.
He said his biggest concern with the October figures was that individual income taxes are still lagging below projections. Individual income taxes have lagged nearly 10 percent below projections since the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1, and were down 8.7 percent last month
Officials have blamed that on job layoffs, and cutbacks in wages and hours due to the recession.
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