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Statement from Rep. Norma
Smith on preliminary state budget forecast
'Job number one for the Legislature right now is
getting our fiscal house in order,' Smith says
In light of yesterday's
state revenue forecast
Rep. Norma Smith issued the following statement:
"Job
number one for the Legislature right now is getting our fiscal house in
order. First and foremost, we must address this year’s budget
shortfall of more than $700 million. We have taken some small steps to
date – now it is essential that we as a legislative body get serious
about balancing this budget.
"Once we are
able to address the current budget shortfall we will have a clearer
picture of the true nature of the 2009-11 budget situation, which is
currently projected to be a shortfall of more than $8 billion. We
must get back to the priorities of government, which includes our
constitutional mandate to fund basic education first, our duty to
protect the most vulnerable members of our society, and fulfill our
obligation to provide the infrastructure necessary for our state to function
and our economy to recover.
"A combination
of habitual overspending by leadership at the state level paired with
the national economic crisis have created a situation that will require
difficult decisions for us over the course of the next weeks and months. For the past several years, leadership has been spending at twice the
rate we have been bringing in revenue. This doesn’t work in your
home budget, and it doesn’t work in the state budget.
"I
remain committed to prioritizing the way we use our valuable taxpayer
dollars, and will not support any new taxes or higher taxes. Our
hard-working families, business owners, communities, farmers and
individuals are not the ones who created this problem – and under no
circumstances should we ask more from them to fix it."
Preliminary revenue forecast fast facts:
The
Economic and Revenue Forecast Council yesterday released a
preliminary and unofficial revenue forecast for the 2007-09 biennium
and the 2009-11 biennium.
The combined General Fund-State (GF-S) net change is a decrease of
$2.3 billion from the November forecast. Other Near General
Fund-State accounts show an additional $84 million revenue decrease.
The official forecast will be adopted in March and may differ
significantly from this “early guidance” forecast.
2007-09 Biennium
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The
forecast projects a GF-S revenue decrease from what was expected in
November of $721.1 million (2.5 percent).
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GF-S forecast revenues for 2007-09 are now $27.905 billion, an increase
of about 0.5 percent from 2005-07.
2009-11 Biennium
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The
GF-S forecast decreases revenues for the 2009-11 biennium by $1.587
billion (5.3 percent). Total
forecast revenues for the next biennium are $28.483 billion, about
$578 million more than 2007-09.
This is a 2.1 percent increase over the 2007-09 biennium, or about 1
percent per year.
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Near General Fund-State revenues, which include other accounts, are now
forecast at $31.121 billion, which is about a 2.1 percent increase over
2007-09, or about 1 percent per year.
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For more information, contact:
Bobbi Cussins, Public Information Officer: (360) 786-7252
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