From KMIZ (emphasis is mine):
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Revenue estimates for the State of Missouri have once again fallen flat, and officials are worried the projected drop for the current fiscal year could be the largest in history.
According to figures released Thursday, actual revenue collections continue to fall below projections. Year-to-date revenues are down 12.7 percent, compared to last year.
State Budget Director Linda Luebbering said next year's revenue collections also are anticipated to fall, based on the "current economic situation."
Preliminary estimates show revenue could fall short by as much as $200 million.
With the latest revenue shortfall the state has had to make more mid-year cuts, something they have already done four other times.
This time they are cutting $126 million dollars to balance the budget that puts the total amount of budget reductions to more than $850 million.
Luebbering says the decline in revenue is due to both unemployment and declining sales taxes.Income taxes and sales taxes make up 90 percent of the state’s revenue, so with less people working and fewer people spending it’s having a major impact.
In these rounds of cuts the state decided to eliminate Truman day as a state holiday for workers, saving them around $1 million, Education will lose $4 million in transportation funding and the Department of Health and Senior Services will lose more than $4 million causing them to cut some programs out completely.
Luebbering says they know they cannot keep cutting so that’s why they are looking to restructure the budget for the 2011 fiscal year.
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are moderated before being posted. Postings are at the sole discretion of the blog moderator. Anonymous postings are no longer allowed. I encourage your comments, but put you name on the bottom line!