Paterson On State Finances: What’s Going On Around Here?
-
- April
- 30
Gov. David Paterson warned today that New York faces a $20 billion budget gap over the next three years, raising concern that future belt tightening is desperately needed.
Paterson said a state economic report to be released Thursday will show that New York faces a roughly $5 billion budget gap in the 2009-10 fiscal year and a 50 percent increase in the deficit in the two following years, bringing each year’s gap to about $7.5 billion.
The state Legislature and Paterson approved a 2008-09 budg
et on April 9 that closed a $4.6 billion budget gap.
“Right now we have to bring some fiscal reality to the state and sometime I wonder what’s going around here because we are deep in debt,” Paterson told reporters.
Despite approving a $121.7 billion budget that increases spending by nearly 5 percent, Paterson has been increasingly critical of state spending.
He has warned that state lawmakers may need to make further cuts to the budget this year, and has called on legislators to start working soon on next year’s budget to prepare for the future budget woes.
The state’s fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
