State Agencies To Face 4% Cut

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear announced Thursday that many state agencies will face four percent budget cuts to make room for tax credit programs approved by the General Assembly."The legislature added some good programs that the governor supports, but the implementation schedule of those, rather than delaying the implementation they wanted to enact them immediately," says Governor's spokesperson Jay Blanton. "That's resulted in some revenue needs that have exacerbated the shortfall."The state's fiscal year began on July 1st, and Blanton says it's necessary to make budget cuts now so the savings can be realized over the next 10 months."The so-called Consensus Forecasting Group has estimated that for this budget year, we're about $82 million short of projections they had made earlier," he says. "So making cuts now is a prudent thing to do because we know already that we're probably not going to have the revenue that was anticipated by the economists earlier in the year."Some healthcare, public safety and economic development funds will not be cut. Higher education and SEEK formula education funds will also remain untouched.