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Show Spending $320,000 Too Much T EVENUE Gains Add $200,000 to State Sur- . 1 plus Estimate." So read newspaper headline the other day. It sounded good. The story revealed the figures. fig-ures. Instead of an estimated surplus this June 30 of $640,000, the state budget director has now revised the estimate to $831,000. Reason for the Increased surplus estimate Is that several sev-eral sources of state revenue have brought In more money than was expected. In other words. It is Increased revenue and not decreased expenditure ex-penditure that accounts forh more favorable financial picture. But that Isn't all of the story. Down at the bottom of the article the amount of the gen-eral gen-eral -fund surplus- at- the end of the la tT fiscal year was given $1,153,228. That means, according ac-cording to the present estimate of surplus this year, that by June 30 the state In the fiscal year will have spent something like $320,000 more than it took In! And this despite the fact that the state I taking In more money In various kinds of taxes, licenses, fees, etc, than ever before In Its history. his-tory. If we can't as a state live within our income now, when that Income Is high, we'll be In a fine predicament If lean years should bring a serious decline In revenue. And even If our Income In-come holds at about the present level, we're still headed for trouble. Another couple years of excessive spending and the state's surplus will be wiped out What then? Do we spend borrowed money? Do we Issue warrants? Do we raise taxes still more? It might be a good Idea for our state officials offi-cials and legislators to do some thinking about that, and then try to put the state's financial house in order before we get Into real trouble. |