State Budget Director Mike McKown apologized
to a group of state lawmakers for possibly ruining their sunny Monday afternoon
with news about the state budget.
McKown was asked to speak with a
legislative interim committee considering funding for higher education. He told
committee members when state lawmakers begin working on the 2015 state budget
next year they are going to find it a difficult task.
McKown said there’s a $265 million
hole that has to be made up with either increased revenue or budget cuts and
the revenue currently doesn’t look good.
“We’re currently down 3.4 percent
(in tax collections) if we’re down 3.4 percent for the whole year that’s over
100-million dollars.”
McKown said the state has actually
collected less revenue so far this fiscal year than it had at this time last
year—and last year was a tight budget.
For the second year in a row
the governor has asked state agencies to submit budget requests that
include a 7.5 percent cuts in spending. McKown said they’ve exempted
public education, corrections and Medicaid so the cuts will only produce about
$80 million.
McKown reminded lawmakers the only
way to meet the $265 million hole is to raise revenues, cut spending or a
combination of the two.
“There’s no appetite to raise
taxes,” McKown said. “So you have to cut budgets.”
The $265 million hole is
mainly caused by Medicaid, which the state has met with one-time monies in
recent years. Those monies are gone.
