State Budget Gap May Be Getting Worse
State Budget Director Laura Anglin stopped short today of putting a new number on the state’s estimated $1.2 billion budget gap for this fiscal year, but warned that the state’s fiscal health hasn’t been getting better.
She said after a meeting of the state Franchise Oversight Board, which oversees the state’s thoroughbred racing franchise, that the $1.2 billion gap that the state released Oct. 3 during a legislative leaders’ meeting was preliminary. A more detailed estimate will be available by month’s end, she said.
“The $1.2 (billion) is a number we put out, a preliminary number we put out on Oct. 3, if you recall with the goal that that number would be updated at the end of the month,” she said.
“Conditions have not improved, so obviously we do believe there might be some deterioration this year.”
She added that the $1.2 billion gap was “not an exact number, was never meant to be an exact number, to basically to show the magnitude of what we are facing this year.”
The new figures later this month will be used to determine how much lawmakers will need to cut from the budget when they return to Albany Nov. 18.
Gov. Paterson wants legislators to cut $2 billion from the budget to provide a cushion to get them through the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends March 31.
Yet Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said they need to wait for updated projections before committing to $2 billion in cuts.
Meanwhile, preparations for the 2009-10 budget year are already underway: Paterson’s budget office today announced a series of hearings on next year’s budget to start Wednesday.
“These hearings are the first step in developing a budget that will involve many difficult choices,” Paterson said in a statement. “While next year’s budget presents us with great uncertainty and fiscal challenges, it also provides an opportunity to scrutinize and reexamine every area of the budget for savings and efficiencies.”
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Shouldn’t be that hard to come up with the numbers. Fact is, they don’t want to tell us the truth, and they don’t want to tell the legislators because the legislators don’t want to know anything until after they get reelected, and, in addition, the info would leak within 5 minutes from a few spirited parties. You’ll get nothing from the banks. Your bonuses are lost. It will be a lot, lot more than 1.2 You can count on that, even if they can’t.