NASHVILLE — Gov. Phil Bredesen said today that Tennessee’s revenue shortfall could hit $800 million by June 30.
“It’s bad,” Gov. Bredesen said after looking at gloomy October tax collections showing revenues falling by an additional estimated $80 million. “So we are, for the first three months of the year ... about $200 million below what the budget passed by the Legislature had in it.”
Gov. Bredesen, who previously asked state departments to provide plans to cut 3 percent from their budgets, said he had wanted to see the fiscal year’s first quarter of revenue collections “before we reacted.”
“But it clearly is time now to make some of those further cuts in expenses,” he said. “And this certainly bears on the budgets that we will put together.”
He said the 3 percent reduction budget “is probably unrealistic in this environment. We’re going to have to be changing that.”
For complete details, see tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Andy Sher is a Nashville-based staff writer covering Tennessee state government and politics for the Times Free Press. A Washington correspondent from 1999-2005 for the Times Free Press, Andy previously headed up state Capitol coverage for The Chattanooga Times, worked as a state Capitol reporter for The Nashville Banner and was a contributor to The Tennessee Journal, among other publications. Andy worked for 17 years at The Chattanooga Times covering police, health care, county government, ...
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