The Legislature’s top financial expert is forecasting lawmakers will have more money to appropriate for education programs, but less for other state operations.

The director of the Legislative Fiscal Office, Norris Green, gave legislators a forecast Tuesday showing that revenue for the education budget should grow by $238 million in the new fiscal year starting Oct. 1. That means the budget could grow from $5.55 billion this fiscal year to $5.79 billion in the new year.

Green said revenue for the state General Fund budget should shrink by $28 million from $1.68 billion this year to $1.66 billion in the new fiscal year.

The governor’s state finance director, Marquita Davis, said his numbers are similar to Green’s, except he expects the General Fund to be about flat.

Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, said the news this morning wasn’t as bad as last year’s, but “we don’t have the revenue increases we had hoped for.”

The next step will be hearing from individual agencies and departments about their budget requests in 2014, which starts Oct. 1.

Collins said agencies aren’t likely to get everything they asked for.

“Sometimes wants and needs are like a 2-year-old’s, they get interchanged,” she said.