LFB: Structural deficit at $1.7 billion
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau says the state's structural deficit will rise to $1.694 billion in this biennium under the proposed budget repair bill before the Legislature.
Under the budget adopted last fall, the structural deficit fell to just under $900 million. But sharply falling revenues have caused the deficit to jump back to its highest level since the 2003-05 biennium, when it hit a record $2.9 billion.
The current budget repair proposal, approved by a conference committee of bipartisan legislative leaders yesterday, does not significantly inflate the structural deficit above plans forwarded earlier by the governor, the Dem-controlled Senate, or Republican-controlled Assembly. According to the LFB, the governor's plan would have left the state with a structural deficit of $1.42 billion, the Assembly plan carried a $1.65 billion structural deficit, and the Senate's proposal had a $1.37 billion structural deficit.
See the LFB memo here.
Labels: Budget_Repair_Bill, structural deficit
