TALLAHASSEE — Calling Florida's financial picture "bleak," "dismal," and "dicey," state economists on Tuesday projected that state tax collections are down $1 billion this year - $400 million more than anticipated.
They also predicted the state's income would be $1.9 billion less next year - a 7.3 percent decrease from November's estimate.
The panel forecast state tax collections would not exceed the amount gleaned in 2005-06 until 2010.
The gloomy picture, they cautioned, could get even worse than what national economists predict.
"Don't be surprised if they don't have it pegged right yet, and don't be surprised if it gets worse than what we think it is now," House economist Don Langston said.
The budget discussion at the Revenue Estimating Conference set the tone for the remaining weeks of the legislative session, in which lawmakers are preparing a pair of lean budgets.
They are expected to vote today on $512 million in cuts to this year's budget and to use about $400 million in reserves to cover the remaining deficit. Then, by the end of the session, they have to approve a budget for next year with $1.9 billion less than what they thought they had to work with.
Florida's constitution requires the legislature to have a balanced budget, and already for this fiscal year lawmakers have reduced spending by more than $1 billion to fulfill that.
The causes for the depressed forecast are a combination of a slump in housing sales, decreased sales tax collections dampened by the weak real estate market and rising energy prices that are expected to continue to escalate.
The Revenue Estimating Conference is a panel of economists led by Langston, Senate economist Alan Johansen, the legislature's Bureau of Economic and Demographic Research coordinator Amy Baker and Christian Weiss, an economist in Gov. Charlie Crist's office.
The myriad of flagging economic conditions results in significant uncertainty in economists' ability to forecast not only how bad the state's finances will get but when they will get better.
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