“...make deep cuts in spending during the remaining seven months of the budget year to avoid a $278 million deficit.”
“...approved a budget of about $6.3 billion for the fiscal year...”
“Deep cuts” are 4.4% of the budget? LOL. They can probably cut 4.4% of their budget by aggressively reducing the amount of office supplies taken home by state workers.
Before I saw your post, I did the math too and just posted about it!
Shhh....you’re being too reasonable.
Adding to your point, here is a graph of recent years and their budgets:
http://www.khi.org/photos/2013/nov/07/2647/
By my math, this huge shortfall will leave us with $6 billion to spend...or 12.5% more than the %5.25 billion we spent in 2010....or 23% more than the $4.6 billion we spent in 2005....in an era with near zero inflation and flat population growth.
Sam deserves a pat on the back...oh, we just gave him one last week :)