R.I. pares revenue forecast for FY 2009

PROVIDENCE – State revenue is lagging earlier projections, Rhode Island’s spring Revenue Estimating Conference found.

That caused the gathering to broaden its estimates of the budget gap for fiscal 2009, which begins July 1, by $55 million beyond the projections of the November 2007 Estimating Conference. (READ MORE).

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The Revenue Conference is a twice-yearly meeting of the R.I. House and Senate finance committees and the R.I. Department of Administration’s State Budget Office. The mandatory sessions, held in November and May, are required to yield a consensus estimate of state General Revenue for the current and approaching fiscal years.

“Like most states, Rhode Island is suffering the impact of the national economic slowdown,” Gov. Donald L. Carcieri said in an after-conference statement. “As a result, it is now clear that state revenues will fail to meet the projections made last November, and the estimated deficit will be an additional $50 [million] to $55 million.”

Revenue for the current fiscal year also will fall short of expectations, on which state policymakers based the supplemental budget signed into law on May 1 (READ MORE), the conference found.

The FY 2008 shortfall will be “within the spending discretion of the administration, so no new supplemental budget will be necessary,” Tom Sgouros, editor of the Rhode Island Policy Reporter, wrote in a column this weekend. But, he added, the same cannot be said of the FY 2009 budget.

“Unfortunately, these new projections leave us with more work to do,” Carcieri said. “In the coming weeks, I will be meeting with the legislative leadership to jointly develop plans that will resolve the expanded deficit.

“Whatever course we take, we must avoid raising taxes to solve this problem,” the governor added. “Rhode Islanders already bear one of the highest total tax burdens of any state in the nation. They are also dealing with dramatic increases in the price of fuel and food. This is not the time to ask [them] to pay even more of their hard-earned dollars to state government.”

Additional information about the R.I. Revenue Estimating Conference, including the latest conference reports, is available from the State of Rhode Island at www.budget.ri.gov and the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council at www.ripec.com.