General Fund revenue estimates may be made once during the First Regular Session of the Legislature and adjustments to these accepted revenue estimates may be made once during the Second Regular Session of the Legislature without mandatory transfer of funds to the Retirement Allowance Fund. If adjustments are made to those initial estimates presented to each regular session of the Legislature, an amount not to exceed 1/2 of the excess of the estimated revenue over the amounts required by law to be set aside for other purposes must be appropriated to the Retirement Allowance Fund.

Sec. X-7. 5 MRSA §1519, sub-§2, as enacted by PL 1999, c. 731, Pt. DD, §1 and affected by §2, is repealed.

Sec. X-8. 5 MRSA §1664, as amended by PL 2001, c. 559, Pt. AA, §2 and c. 702, §4 is further amended by adding at the end a new paragraph to read:

The total General Fund appropriation for each fiscal year of the biennium in the Governor's budget submission to the Legislature may not exceed the General Fund appropriation of the previous fiscal year multiplied by one plus the average real personal income growth rate, as defined in section 1665, subsection 1, plus the average forecasted inflation rate.__For purposes of this paragraph, "average forecasted inflation rate" means the average forecasted change in the Consumer Price Index underlying the revenue projections developed by the Revenue Forecasting Committee pursuant to chapter 151-B.__This appropriation limitation may be exceeded only by the amount of the additional costs or the lost federal revenue from the following exceptional circumstances: unfunded or under-funded new federal mandates; losses in federal revenues or other revenue sources; citizens' initiatives or referenda that require increased state spending; court orders or decrees that require additional state resources to comply with the orders or decrees; and sudden or significant increases in demand for existing state services that are not the result of legislative changes that increased eligibility or increased benefits.__The Governor may designate exceptional circumstances that are not explicitly defined in this paragraph but meet the intent of this paragraph.__ For purposes of this paragraph, "exceptional circumstances" means an unforeseen condition or conditions over which the Governor and the Legislature have little or no control.__Exceptional circumstances do not apply to new programs or program expansions that go beyond existing program criteria and operation.

Sec. X-9. 5 MRSA §1665, sub-§1, as enacted by PL 1989, c. 501, Pt. P, §13, is amended to read: