TALLAHASSEE - The head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Tuesday budget belt-tightening will force 40 to 50 layoffs and make the state pull out all but the biggest drug investigations.
FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey said he is meeting with sheriffs and police chiefs to see what they are most willing to give up. He told Gov. Charlie Crist and the Cabinet that the department's most sought-after services, like DNA laboratory work and fingerprint checks, will not be scaled back but that some extremely difficult choices are ahead.
Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, a certified law-enforcement officer, told Bailey that his own inspectors and firefighters are also feeling the pinch of the state's sluggish economy. Bronson said promises to "hold harmless" law enforcement never survive big budget cuts.
Crist recently ordered agencies to impound 4 percent of their operating budgets in anticipation of state revenue collections falling below the already-gloomy projections on which the Legislature based the state budget. State economists have another revenue-estimating conference set for Friday to revise their forecasts.
"There are no decisions I can make there that I will be roundly applauded for," Bailey said at a Cabinet meeting.
He said FDLE has already cut 56 jobs, frozen hiring on 134 vacancies and halted internal promotions. He said he had a meeting set with Sen. Victor Crist, R-Temple Terrace, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Appropriations committee, to go over revenue expectations and policy options.
At least 29 states plus the District of Columbia, including several of the nation's largest states, faced an estimated $48 billion in combined shortfalls in their budgets for fiscal year 2009 (which began July 1, 2008 in most states.) At least three other states expect budget problems in fiscal year 2010.
In general, states closed these budget gaps through some combination of spending cuts, use of reserves or revenue increases when they adopted a fiscal year 2009 budget. At this point in the year, most states have already adopted those budgets; only two states - California and Michigan - continue to deliberate.[1] In order to present a complete picture of the impact of the current economic downturn on state finances, we report both the gaps that have been closed and those that will be closed in the future.
The bursting of the housing bubble has reduced state sales tax revenue collections from sales of furniture, appliances, construction materials, and the like. Weakening consumption of other products has also cut into sales tax revenues. Property tax revenues have also been affected, and local governments will be looking to states to help address the squeeze on local and education budgets. And if the employment situation continues to deteriorate, income tax revenues will weaken and there will be further downward pressure on sales tax revenues as consumers become reluctant or unable to spend.
The vast majority of states cannot run a deficit or borrow to cover their operating expenditures. As a result, states have three primary actions they can take during a fiscal crisis: they can draw down available reserves, they can cut expenditures, or they can raise taxes. States already have begun drawing down reserves; the remaining reserves are not sufficient to allow states to weather a significant downturn or recession. The other alternatives - spending cuts and tax increases - can further slow a state's economy during a downturn and contribute to the further slowing of the national economy, as well
The Federal budget deficit for 2009 is now projected at a record 482 billion dollars. That will eclipse the old record of 413 billion set at the end of George Bush's first term in 2004. The next President will certainly have a sobering first few days in office when he realizes that there is no money left to spend to cover all the promises that he made to get into the Oval Office to begin with.
In fact, he has to find at least 482 billion dollars just to make ends meet. Of course, the next President can just add to the ten trillion dollars of cumlative national debt that the country already has a tab for.
