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.