Legislative Analyst Forecasts Less Revenue than Governor

The Legislative Analyst has issued a new report on the outlook for state revenue.  It is less optimistic than the forecast contained in the governor's budget proposal of January. Both the LAO and the governor assume that the governor's tax measure slated for the November ballot will pass.  Forecasting involves much uncertainty and in the case of budgeting, the economic forecast must be linked to specific taxes, another possible source of error.  Nonetheless, ultimately the legislature has to go with some forecast and, as we saw last June, it can assume phantom revenue and pass a budget on that basis with a simple majority.

The LAO report is at http://lao.ca.gov/analysis/2012/update/economic-revenue-update-022712.pdf

Anything that cuts into state revenue poses a risk to UC: