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BY CHELYEN DAVIS
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will have a new revenue forecast ready for legislators by Aug. 19, but probably not a finished plan for budget cuts.
Kaine had promised earlier this summer to do a revenue re-forecast unusually early, in time for an annual budget presentation to legislators that's scheduled for Aug. 19.
State revenues have been dropping steadily for months; Kaine announced in June that May revenues were 9 percent behind projections for the year.
Kaine has met with economic advisers and plans to present their views to a panel that will help determine a new revenue forecast this week.
In an interview during a tour of Fredericksburg earlier this week, Kaine said the Governor's Advisory Council on Revenue Estimates will meet Aug. 5. Its members will help do the revenue re-forecast that Kaine will unveil to legislators Aug. 19.
State agencies have already given Kaine proposals to cut their budgets by five percent, 10 percent and 15 percent, and Kaine is reviewing those now, he said. But he does not expect to have a package of specific cuts ready to present to lawmakers at the Aug. 19 meeting.
Kaine has made several previous rounds of budget cuts during his term.
"It's going to be tough," he said. "Every round gets harder everything that's easy to do has been done."
He said he expects cuts to the 2010 budget, which is the current budget year, and that the 2011-2012 budget he writes in December will be "austere."
While Kaine said no aspect of state government can be immune to cuts, he does hope to keep pain to public schools minimal.
By the time he's ready to announce budget cuts--around Labor Day, Kaine said--the school year will be starting.
He said there are some signs of an economic turnaround, but that "we're not yet seeing the trends we want to see."
Chelyen Davis: 540/368-5028
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com
