... is, as predicted, not good.A full-court press showed up to hear what Arun Raha, our state's chief economist, and the members of the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council have to say about the state's economic landscape.
The short of it - Raha predicts that for the current 2007-2009 biennium (which will end this June), revenues will be down another $15 million from the "early guidance" forecast presented in February. This means lawmakers will have to find additional savings in the current budget, beyond those already passed in the "Early Action Savings Bill" last month.
For the upcoming 2010-1011 biennium, the news is, as put by Rep. Ross Hunter, "a half-billion worse today than it was yesterday."
Raha says revenues over the next two years will be down an additional estimated $538 million. This is due largely to increasing weakness in non-residential construction, manufacturing, aerospace, software publishing and retail sales.
One interesting tidbit - the funding provided throught the fed's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act boosts our revenues (or lessens our shortfall) by approximately $884 million.
You can read more details (LOTS of details, probably more details than you care to know) here.
Another interesting tidbit - looks like the Olympian's Brad Shannon (right) is coming out with a new edition of Survivor soon.
