BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana’s governor and legislative leaders will choose from three university economists to fill a vacancy on the state income forecasting panel.
The Board of Regents recommended the list Wednesday to the governor, Senate president and House speaker, who will select one economist to join them on the Revenue Estimating Conference.
On the list are Stephen Barnes and Gregory Upton from LSU and Gary Wagner from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
The independent economist position on the conference is a critical role in state government. The panel determines the income projections used to build the state budget. It adopts multiyear forecasts for state tax, license and fee collections.
Only one economist, LSU’s Jim Richardson, has filled that role since the forecasting panel was created three decades ago. He is retiring.