PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s state budget for the current year will need to be cut by another $130 million – bringing the total shortfall to nearly $200 million – as tax revenue continues to fall well below forecasts, budget officials said Tuesday.

Gov. Donald L. Carcieri said the final projection made at the semiannual Revenue Estimating Conference will force another round of midyear budget cuts. The current fiscal year began July 1.

“State and local officials may wish for a rosier picture, but as leaders, and stewards of our future, we have the very unpleasant but critical task of managing our way through what is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” the governor said in a statement.

Carcieri continued to rule out raising taxes to maintain services, and instead suggested the amount the state sends to cities and towns will be reduced further. “Having made sizeable reductions in personnel and social services expenditures, attention is now on the third major area of state spending, local aid to cities and towns,” he said.

Officials from the R.I. Department of Administration and the R.I. Budget Office also have begun meeting with department heads to look for savings, Carcieri said.

He added: “In addressing these budget shortfalls, we need to avoid overtaxing, overspending, and trying to do more in government than we can afford.”

The lower revenue projection released Tuesday comes after Carcieri spent the summer working to find roughly $68 million in unspecified savings mandated by the General Assembly in its original budget blueprint.

To close the gap, the governor reached a deal with public-sector unions that requires unpaid work days and the postponement of a raise. He also plans to withhold some municipal aid and reduce the state’s higher-education appropriation.

In addition, the state closed out the fiscal year that ended June 30 with a $62 million deficit, leaving the budget for this year nearly $200 million in the red in light of the revenue projection released Tuesday.