Gov. Steve Beshear announced Thursday that internal numbers indicate the state General Funds faces a revenue shortfall between $818 million and $1.094 billion for Fiscal Year 2010. The Road Fund is expected to fall $202 million to $256 million short of previous projections. Beshear will ask the Consensus Forecasting Group to make an official revenue projection in May.
Since the anticipated General Fund shortfall is well above the 5 percent threshold that requires legislative action in making spending cuts, a special session seems a virtual certainty. Waiting until January to address a shortfall of that magnitude would be fiscally irresponsible. The combination of cuts and/or revenue increases needed to fill that big of a hole can’t be cobbled together and implemented in the last quarter of the year, as the General Assembly did with the $459 million shortfall in the current fiscal year. So, look for a special session either in June or early in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
Larry Dale Keeling, a columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, has spent most of his 35-plus years in journalism reporting on or writing editorials and columns about Kentucky’s politics and political issues. He now brings his experience and expertise on those topics to the KyKurmudgeon blog.
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