Florida’s budget gap ($3.8 billion?!?) growing for Rick Scott. $1.3b? $800m more?

Another revenue-estimating conference, another likely budget gap. Depending on how the calculations are figured, the budget gap grow by another $1.3 billion for fiscal year 11-12. So the shortfall could be as high as $3.8 billion -- or perhaps even higher.

This morning, the state’s economists are issuing the general-revenue forecast that will underpin incoming Gov. Rick Scott’s budget. And it’s likely to be awash in red ink. Tax collections are growing. But they’re now forecast to grow more slowly than anticipated last August. And the tax collections aren’t growing as fast as likely expenditures for Medicaid, the biggest cost-driver in the budget, and schools, in which enrollment is increasing (thanks, partly, to 6,000 more students from earthquake-cholera-ravaged Haiti).

"We're definitely seeing year-over-year growth," said Amy Baker, the Legislature's chief economist. "But it's very, very slow."

By day’s end, the roundtable of economists from the Legislature’s Economic & Demographic Research, the Department of Revenue and the Executive Office of the Governor (which often issues the relatively rosiest forecasts) will reach a consensus on how much to shave from their estimates from the current and following budget year.

Taking the average of the three, the forecast tax collections will be down $589 million this year and down $686 million next year – Scott’s first budget year.

If those numbers hold, and if expenditures remain on pace, next year’s estimated budget gap of $3 billion could grow by $884.5 million more. If you use numbers from another financial outlook issued by state economists, a gap of $2.5 billion could increase by $1.3 billion. Obviously, if the starting gap is $3 billion, then the shortfall is over $4 billion.

Either way, it sure looks like the shortfall could be as high as $3.8 billion.

Note of caution: these are all estimates that will be subject to change. For instance, though Scott will use these numbers to propose his budget in February, the revenue-estimating conference will meet again and issue a new forecast before the Legislature proposes its own FY 11-12 budget in March.

Still, the trend is clear: Florida's economy is crawling along and sucking wind. Economic growth and therefore tax collections are anemic. So expect some major losers in the budget, most likely in Medicaid. Expect state worker pay cuts, layoffs or furloughs. Pension changes are pretty much a guarantee. The specifics, though, are uncertain. Scott won't say what he'll do, in part because the political newcomer doesn't yet know. One way or another, certainly by budget time, he'll explain how he'll trim $1 billion from school property taxes and begin eliminating corporate income taxes as he faces a budget gap.

 

Comments

[Scott is a Crook]

Get to Work Scott!
We all know where this grifter will get the money to pay for this state's underfunded budget; cutting jobs (not creating them), cutting the education of our children and healthcare for our seniors and infirmed, pillaging our environment, and motgaging the Future of Florida, all the while giving big tax breaks to wealthy insiders and corporations.
Scott = < Quality of Life for Floridians

[buckeye one]

how's that Jeb Bush Repiglican agenda working for you all?
where will the Repiglicans get the money to balance the budget?
will it come from the millionaires and billionaires and corporations????
no, Scott and his corrupt R buddies will raise taxes on the middle and lower classes by calling them "fees".
He'll raid the pension fund and cut corporate taxes to nothing.

[Nomorebailouts]

There will be cuts in services and reductions in expenditures to be sure. The opium of stimulus money will be gone soon and reality will set in. This will be a tough process but we will emerge stronger after the recession passes. Together we will make this a better state and we will pay our bills.

[Fred Buckine@comcst.net]

To those who follow the "promises of any Republican elected to office (i.e. cut taxes and save the government $$$)" -reality will demonstrate TRUTH-- can not be done- will not be done. With more people each year added to the population- the cost of "providing government services to said growth will incease-as it should. The pie in the sky promise of Rep. to "lower taxes, etc., " is just that- lies that flies--