The revenue collections report from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau released today gives a more dire outlook than originally anticipated, putting the revenue shortfall through April at $1.6 billion. With the new figures, the total budget deficit through June 2011 stands at $6.6 billion.

Gov. Jim Doyle said last week the state's budget shortfall could grow up to another $1.5 billion because of slowing tax collections and proposed a series of state employee layoffs, furloughs and spending cuts to fix the new problem without raising taxes.

"Now that there's a dollar figure attached to the deficit, he'll get to work implementing his strategy," spokeswoman Carla Vigue said.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, said discussions continue between legislative leaders and the Doyle administration about how to implement a deficit reduction plan.

"This is a considerably larger task than we had started out to do," said Pocan, co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee.

Pocan said doesn't expect a plan to come from the governor before the end of the week.

"First and foremost are even deeper cuts," Pocan said.

"Realistically I think you're going to see cuts to just about everything," he said. "This already was a very tough budget and had it not been for the federal stimulus, it would have been an even tougher place to be."

April individual income tax collections showed a decrease of 35.8 percent over the same month last year, roughly a $317 million drop. Year-to-date individual income tax collections are down 8.3 percent from last year, according to the LFB, which noted similar decreases in other states and at the federal level.

General fund tax revenues are estimated to decline by $408 million in this fiscal year, which ends on June 30. For the 2009-10 fiscal year, revenues are estimated to decline by $573 million, and in the 2010-11 fiscal year by $622 million.

The LFB said most of the net decrease is due to falling individual income, corporate income and franchise tax collections. Meanwhile, estimated revenues from general sales and use tax have "increased considerably," according to the LFB.

General fund tax revenues for 2007-08 equaled more than $13 billion in the 2007-08 fiscal year. That figure is expected to drop by 7.1 percent, or $925.6million, in the 2008-09 fiscal year.

In the 2009-10 fiscal year, general fund tax revenues are estimated to continue their decline, falling to $11.7 billion, according to the LFB. But they are expected to rebound to $12.3 billion in the 2010-11 fiscal year.

See the LFB memo here.

-- By Greg Bump