Gov. Steve Beshear said the budget outlook is so dire that he's asking state agencies and universities to find ways to cut 3 percent of their budget for the rest of the year.
The move comes as state revenue projections have shrunk by several hundred million dollars over the last year, leaving the state with a $289 million gap in this fiscal year, which ends June 30.
The financial situation is "much worse than anticipated," Beshear said.
Beshear gave details about Kentucky's budget at a 1 p.m. press conference and said he would offer more about how he planned to tackle it next week. He acknowledged that he has asked state agencies to come up with ways to skim 3 percent off their current budget...
This from H-L's PolWatchers blog.
Just this morning the Courier-Journal was asking,
Apparently Beshear did not blame Fletcher. But then again, he didn't have to. Kentuckians know the score.It is possible to blame Ernie Fletcher for some of the budget dilemma that Steve
Beshear faces -- a dilemma the new governor calls "dire," and a circumstance he
rightly describes as "serious disarray." ......When Gov. Fletcher and the lawmakers did tax reform, they could have established a base that would finance essential services. Instead, they opted for "tax reform lite" and continued to pass structurally unsound budgets. The General Assembly continued to raid the trust and agency accounts, and kept right on approving each other's pet projects in order to agree on a budget bill.
It was the lawmakers who gave teachers bigger raises than Dr. Fletcher proposed, which is fine, but they didn't incorporate that and other big spending into a budget plan that really would stand the test of time or the pressure of lagging revenue. Add the looming demands of Medicaid financing and public employee pension funding and what you get is a mess...
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