State Legislature Deficit Prediction

Just in time for some holiday cheer the State Legislature has sent out their budget deficit. The 4 Billion dollar - $4,000,000,000 - deficit that is projected is going to hurt local units of government. It was less than a decade ago when the state was faced with a large deficit and the legislature decided to drastically cut Local Government Aid and balance the state budget on the backs of Counties and Cities but cutting off money and shifting state responsibilities to local units of government.

We have been dealing a number of critical issues including non-payment of taxes and assessments in the Finance Committee. We will be adding this topic. I will be proposing several further spending cuts if our LGA is cut for the existing 2009 budget. This was done the last time and hopefully it will not happen but we must be prepared.

The positive is that with our fiscal discipline the last 2 years we are well placed to weather this financial tsunami. Hard decisions will have to be made but we will come through this together.