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The city of Houston's main pension program has a billion-dollar funding shortfall because benefits have been boosted so high that many employees will earn more in retirement than they received while working, according to a report obtained by the Chronicle. A few will retire as millionaires. To properly reduce the shortfall, taxpayers would have to put nearly $100 million extra into the fund next year, according to an analysis prepared for the pension's board. Further, the city cannot reduce the benefits for any employee who already has worked five years, thanks to a Texas constitutional amendment passed by voters last...

<p>As Republicans attempt to oust Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, their effort is fueled by the charge that he and the Democratic-controlled Legislature spent a surge of tax revenue late last decade too freely and for too long.</p> <p>Lawmakers are haggling over a state budget that is 13 days overdue, and recall backers point to irresponsible spending as a key reason for California's staggering shortfall and their conviction that Davis should be tossed out of office.</p>

<p>Gov. Gray Davis on Monday signed a package of bills to shave $3.7 billion from the state's deficit, nine days before he reveals an updated plan to fill the rest of California's mammoth budget hole.</p> <p>"To be sure, we have a lot farther to go," Davis said before adding his signature to six bills approved by the Legislature last week.</p>

<p>FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The state budget, passed just weeks ago, may face an $81.7 million shortfall, the governor's budget office warned yesterday.</p> <p>If that happens, the state would have to make deeper spending cuts and some lawmakers say it would leave them and the next governor with an even tougher job in writing a budget for the 2004-06 biennium.</p>

Perry denies knowledge of draft budget increases Associated Press AUSTIN (AP) — Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday said he never saw draft budget documents from his office that show tentative plans to raise education and social services funding while suggesting accounting delays Perry now criticizes as budgetary "sleights of hand." The Associated Press examined the working papers after the Republican governor's office made the hundreds of thousands of pages available to reporters who requested them under the Texas Public Information Act. The papers detail plans Perry's staff were working on when Texas was expected to have a $5 billion budget...

<p>Posted on January 16, 2003 BATON ROUGE - The problem of funding Louisiana's public schools is twice as bad as when classes started this year, state education board members learned Wednesday. That means local school systems may have to absorb some of the hit.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Gray Davis is overstating the state's two-year budget shortfall nearly $9 billion, California's nonpartisan legislative analyst said Wednesday.</p> <p>She issued a report estimating the state's revenues will be at least $26 billion short over the next 18 months -- in contrast to Davis' predictions that the state faces a $34.6 billion deficit.</p>

<p>Gov. Gray Davis receives a hug from his wife, Sharon, and applause from a Memorial Auditorium audience after he's sworn in to his second term on Monday.</p> <p>Gov. Gray Davis began his second term Monday by pledging to create jobs and protect basic government services but warning Californians to brace themselves for a state budget crisis that "boggles the mind."</p>

NASHVILLE — Democratic Gov.-elect Phil Bredesen said employee furloughs and layoffs coupled with across-the-board department cuts will be "on the table" if that’s what it takes to balance the state budget. "Obviously, the state is once again in a more serious situation than anyone realized in September, October or November," Mr. Bredesen told the Chattanooga Times Free Press last week during an interview at his Nashville office. "The fact that the revenue estimates were too optimistic, combined with the TennCare issue, those are two significant, multihundred-million-dollar hits to the budget," he said. "I would have thought on July 15 that...

<p>A deficit of that magnitude leaves the state facing "just too big a gap to close" without tax hikes, Davis told a Los Angeles radio station Wednesday.</p> <p>As he makes his case for deep budget cuts and possible tax increases, Davis has hinted for weeks that the shortfall would far exceed the $21 billion estimated last month by legislative analysts.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's budget deficit has ballooned to a staggering $34.8 billion, Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites) announced on Wednesday, leaving lawmakers the task of crafting a new spending plan with scant revenues to fund state programs. "(It) is far more than any expert predicted," Davis told reporters. Previous official estimates put the deficit at $21 billion. Davis made his announcement after meeting with top legislative leaders to discuss the shortfall over the next 18 months that has already forced the Democratic governor to propose $10.2 billion in spending cuts in the nation's most populous and...

<p>AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) A newly revised forecast by an advisory state panel holds potential for enlarging a government revenue shortfall already pegged at about $240 million by $25 million or more, according to legislative analysts.</p> <p>The negative adjustments could make more difficult a task that has bedeviled lawmakers and Gov. Angus King for months: matching current spending levels with available resources.</p>

Hearings’ timing poses problems for legislators AUGUSTA — State House hearings on Gov. Angus King’s $240 million supplemental budget package will begin the week of Oct. 7 , but a special legislative session needed to approve the bill may not take place until after the Nov. 5 general election. In that event, responsibility for crafting the mix of program cuts and tax realignments to balance the budget will fall to members of a lame duck Legislature. “For reasons that are impossible for me to untangle — this has taken a while,” said Sen. Jill Goldthwait, a Bar Harbor independent....

<p>AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) Gov. Angus King is taking exception to charges by some gubernatorial candidates that he's led a state government that spends beyond its means.</p> <p>''I'm not going to get into a debate with the candidates. They have to make their points,'' King said during a recent interview. ''But I'm going to defend the record we have achieved.''</p>

<p>This is pitiful!  Maine is in BIG TROUBLE with the budget. Yet, Governor King will NOT do away with the lap top program! The Governor has $30 million stashed away for laptops!!!</p> <p>As public schools across Maine prepare to give laptop computers to nearly 17,000 seventh-graders, teachers at nine schools that pioneered the program are sharing what they've learned.</p>

<p>Sacramento -- Wall Street's summer meltdown could threaten a key assumption in Gov. Gray Davis' plan to close a $23.6 billion budget deficit: that economic recovery is just around the corner.</p> <p>Some experts predict that even if Davis and lawmakers manage to patch together a budget this summer, steeper tax increases and deeper spending cuts will be needed to deal with future budget deficits.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Gray Davis has asked the committee scraping to fill a $23.6 billion budget hole to find $1 billion more -- with cuts or tax increases -- to boost emergency reserves and protect California's credit.</p> <p>Now, after two full weeks of meetings, the Conference Committee on the Budget must decide how to come up with about $5.5 billion. That includes $1 billion reserve, about $1 billion in additions the panel has made to the budget and roughly $3.5 billion in car and cigarette tax increases proposed by Davis last month.</p>

Budget panel has yet to say the T word That's T as in 'taxes,' a term that's AWOL as the state's deadline passes. By John Hill -- Bee Capitol Bureau Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, June 16, 2002 In two fast-paced weeks, the Legislature's special budget-writing committee has taken scores of actions to cope with a $23.6 billion shortfall. But it has so far sidestepped the fiscal equivalent of the 800-pound gorilla: raising taxes. Gov. Gray Davis proposed $3.5 billion in taxes to help balance the books in the fiscal year that begins July 1, including...