An interesting question is what the governor's May Revise budget will look like. It's only about a month away. The state controller has put out data on state revenues through the first nine months of fiscal year 2022-23, the year that began last July 1. See the table below for a summary. Normally, we would expect a dollop of revenue in April when personal income taxes are due. But the due date has been postponed due to weather damage. Taxpayers will have an incentive to file if they are owed money from the state and the feds but not if they expect to pay.
Basically, of the major three state tax sources - personal income tax, sales tax, and corporation tax - the controller's data on the table below suggests that almost all the action is on the first. Total revenues for the first nine months of this fiscal year are well under what they were at the same time last year. They are below what was forecast last June when the current budget was enacted and below the level forecast last January when the governor made his initial budget proposal. The drop is mainly due to lower personal income tax receipts. A footnote in the controller's March statement attributes the decline to the stock market. The revenue drop suggests a restrictive May Revise is likely.
On the other hand, the state is sitting on a lot of cash, over $90 billion, well above its cash level a year ago through March. So, we are not talking about the kind of budget crisis that developed during the Great Recession when the state had to issue IOUs to deal with its bills. And we now have a governor, as the image from Politico above suggests, with an eye on the White House, i.e., someone who may want to keep his constituents reasonably happy. Some kind of balancing act will be required. (And it may not result in a "balanced" budget, whatever you may read in the news.)
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