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At least 29 states plus the District of Columbia, including several of the nation’s largest states, faced an estimated $48 billion in combined shortfalls in their budgets for fiscal year 2009 (which began July 1, 2008 in most states.) At least three other states expect budget problems in fiscal year 2010. In general, states closed these budget gaps through some combination of spending cuts, use of reserves or revenue increases when they adopted a fiscal year 2009 budget. At this point in the year, most states have already adopted those budgets; only two states — California and Michigan — continue...

Waiting Game: Governor's refusal to freeze state spending has ominous consequences By Tom Patterson, Governor Janet Napolitano recently vetoed bills to freeze state hiring and spending, in spite of a state budget deficit of more than $1 billion. It has been clear since last July that the revenues for fiscal year 2008, which ends June 30, would not be nearly sufficient to support the gigantic spending increases in the last four state budgets. During the Governor's first term, real general fund expenditures increased 54 percent, 29 percentage points more than population and inflation, combined. The governor could have called for...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's multibillion-dollar budget shortfall has grown, the state's nonpartisan fiscal watchdog said Wednesday as she offered a trim-and-tax plan that competes with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal for across-the-board cuts. The report by Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill shifted the state's fledgling budget debate to whether new taxes should be part of the solution _ an approach the Republican governor has opposed. It also sparked the kind of partisan sniping that Democrats and Republicans had so far avoided in hopes of preventing a repeat of the protracted budget debate that paralyzed the capital last summer. Schwarzenegger last month pegged...

Summary At least twenty-five states, including several of the nation’s largest, face budget shortfalls in fiscal year 2009. Of these 25 states, specific estimates are available for 20 states; the combined deficits of these 20 states are expected to total at least $34 billion for fiscal 2009 — which begins July 2008 in most states. Another 3 states expect budget problems in fiscal year 2010, although some of those gaps may occur earlier than expected. Many of the other states have not yet released information about their fiscal status. The bursting of the housing bubble has reduced state sales tax...

ROBSTOWN, Tex. — Leon Little’s farm here near Corpus Christi would not be seized for Texas’s proposed $184-billion-plus superhighway project for 5 or 10 years, if ever. But Mr. Little was alarmed enough to show up Wednesday night with hundreds of his South Texas coastal neighbors to do what the Texas Department of Transportation has been urging: “Go ahead, don’t hold back.” Don’t worry. Texans have gotten the message, swamping hearings and town meetings across the state to grill and often excoriate agency officials about a colossal traffic makeover known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the...

Sometimes the truth just has a way of coming to light. A public information officer with the Texas Department of Transportation this week wrote a column in the Herald-Press describing the financial woes facing TxDOT and how because of those problems the state’s transportation department doesn’t have the money to deal with many of the state’s transportation issues. Apparently, several of the state’s senators do not feel that is the case at all. David Dewhurst called out the state’s interim chairwoman of the Texas Transportation Commission, Hope Andrade, on this very issue, according to a story from the Associated Press....

A big protest is planned for Monday afternoon, ahead of the latest public hearing on the proposed statewide tollway. Lots of landowners are upset about the state’s plan to build a tollway from Mexico to northeast Texas. There have already been several town hall meetings about the Trans-Texas Corridor. Most of the people who have spoken out about the plan say it will put them out of business. But state officials argue the tollway is necessary to keep up with the growing population in Texas. Monday’s meeting is being held in Huntsville. It starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Walker...

The Texas Department of Transportation says it can't afford to build new roads without more funds, but a Panhandle lawmaker called the move an attempt to hold projects for ransom. TxDOT argues costs have skyrocketed and federal and state lawmakers have diverted millions to other priorities, Amarillo District Engineer Mark Tomlinson said. State legislators moved more than $1.5 billion from the 2008-09 state highway fund for other missions, he said. So TxDOT must cut $1.1 billion from its 2008-09 construction budget and focus on maintenance of the state's 79,000 miles of existing roadways, Tomlinson said. Next week, Tomlinson will list...

The Texas Department of Transportation is pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing the state to "buy back" parts of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads. The 24-page plan, outlined in a "Forward Momentum" report that escaped widespread attention when published in February, drew prompt objections Thursday from state lawmakers and activists fighting the spread of privately run toll roads. "I think it's a dreadful recommendation on the part of the transportation commissioners here in Texas," said Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas. "I feel confident that legislators in Austin would overwhelmingly...

Let the fracas continue over Texas transportation policy. It's important to keep people alert to the Legislature's failure to address the state's glaring highway needs, and a new dustup is one way to accomplish that. The latest is over the Department of Transportation's developing "outreach" campaign to advocate for the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor and other proposed toll projects. The price tag could reach $9 million, and some lawmakers have badmouthed the idea. Good. Along with their complaints, maybe we'll see a rare thing come out of the Capitol – realistic solutions for meeting demand for new roadways in the face...

WASHINGTON, May 3, 2007 – The Defense Department will take “every action necessary for as long as possible,” to ensure that troops fighting in Iraq are not affected by the delay in approval of its supplemental war funding, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday. The longer the supplemental funding goes unapproved, the greater the financial disruptions on the Army, but most of those will be absorbed as monies are transferred from accounts for U.S. construction, training, hiring and travel and funneled to supporting the war, Gates told Pentagon reporters. President Bush on May 1 vetoed an emergency war-funding...

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The state auditor's office on Monday challenged the validity of more than half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation and cautioned that the estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion, based on 2004 figures, has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The State Auditor's Office this morning released a report challenging the validity of almost half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation, and cautioning that the gap estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion figure has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

AUSTIN — A report done for a group of business leaders who advise Gov. Rick Perry recommends increasing the state gasoline tax to pay for new highway construction in Texas. The transportation report for the Governor's Business Council says most of the state's highway needs could be paid for by indexing the state gasoline tax to the cost of highway construction. Such indexing would raise the tax by 8 to 12 cents a gallon immediately. The gas tax would rise from the current 20 cents a gallon to 59 cents a gallon by 2030, raising $74.6 billion in highway-construction funds,...

A diversion of dollars to help fight the war in Iraq has helped create a $530 million shortfall for Army posts at home and abroad, leaving some unable to pay utility bills or even cut the grass. In San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston hasn't been able to pay its $1.4 million monthly utility bill since March, prompting workers in many of the post's administrative buildings to get automated disconnection notices. Fort Bragg in North Carolina can't afford to buy pens, paper or other office supplies until the new fiscal year starts in October. And in Kentucky, Fort Knox had to...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California lawmakers won't have to worry about a multibillion budget deficit next year for the first time in four years thanks to an unexpected jump in tax income and ongoing spending cuts, according to a report released Wednesday. But Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill tempered the good news with a warning that the state has not solved its long-term spending problems and warned that big deficits will return in 2007-2008 unless additional steps are taken. "The state has to keep its foot on the gas peddle of getting its fiscal house in order," Hill said at a news...

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Oct. 26, 2005) -- There are those who might focus on the fact that the Army missed its self-imposed recruiting goals in fiscal year 2005, yet ignore the fact that the total end strength and capabilities of the Army are what matter most. The men and women of the Army clearly derive a great deal of satisfaction from their decision to serve our nation as evidenced by the fact the Army exceeded its re-enlistment goals across the board. “America’s Army remains the pre-eminent land force in the world today,” said Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey....

AUGUSTA - A legislative panel learned Thursday the Baldacci administration is preparing for fuel shortages and considering emergency state allocations to help prop up programs that provide relief from rising heating oil costs. The Legislature's Appropriations Committee also was informed of shortfalls within one of the state's most popular heating programs that provides financial assistance to Maine's poorest residents. Dale McCormick, director of the Maine State Housing Authority, asked lawmakers to consider an emergency funding request of $10.2 million from the state's General Fund to bolster insufficient federal revenues. "This is not going to be a good year for Maine...

The Bush administration yesterday admitted that it badly miscalculated health care spending for veterans this year and agreed to send Congress an emergency spending request to make up a shortfall of at least $1 billion. It was a reversal from just a day before, when Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said money could be transferred among accounts to make up the difference, and House Republicans, on a procedural vote, rejected Democrats' attempt to add more money. But with the Senate voting unanimously yesterday to add $1.5 billion to veterans health spending and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi promising to "make...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's state government faces a year-end shortfall of $6.7 billion in its 2005-06 year, a gap it can close with $3.5 billion in deficit-financing bonds and with improving revenues, the state legislative analyst's office said on Wednesday. However, the nonpartisan office, which tracks the state's revenues, spending and budget, said California's budget gap could grow to nearly $10 billion in the state's 2006-07 year because a number of one-time solutions used to balance the current 2004-05 year budget will not be available. In the next year, California's legislative analyst's office said in a report, it estimates...