Finance and Administration Commissioner Dave Goetz reported today that overall March revenues were $866.7 million or $65.0 million less than the state budgeted.

"The current year budget was based on sales tax growth of just over four percent, but the actual growth rate has been below two percent," Goetz said. "Given that, and a corporate tax shortfall of $86 million so far this fiscal year, we anticipate having to make some difficult decisions to keep state spending within the limits for the remainder of the current year and into next year."

On an accrual basis, March is the eighth month in the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

The general fund was under collected by $64.3 million and the four other funds were under collected by $700,000.

Sales tax collections were $13.2 million less than the estimate for March.  The March growth rate was 0.60%. For eight months revenues are under collected by $117.7 million. The year-to-date growth rate for eight months was 1.81%.

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