New York’s revenue picture has improved compared to last year but not enough to prevent the general fund from running a negative balance every day this month, the state comptroller said in a cash report last week.
Without a budget in place, the state has managed cash-flow difficulties by delaying certain payments. Those delays allowed the state to end May with a positive fund balance.
Making those payments, which include $1 billion of aid to school districts, may depend on how much revenue the state receives in the second half of June.
“New Yorkers know that you need a budget, especially when money is tight,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a press release. “The state is limping along week-to-week without a budget, hoping there will be enough money to pay the bills.”
With the fiscal 2011 budget nearly three months late, the expected savings from Gov. David Paterson’s proposed budget cuts would save less because they would take effect for a shorter time, DiNapoli noted.
“This is no way to responsibly operate a state already mired in a fiscal crisis,” he said. General fund receipts in the first two months of the fiscal year totaled $7 billion, a $126.2 million increase compared to the same period last year.
Personal income tax withholdings came in at $3.9 billion while sale tax receipts brought in $1.3 billion, respectively up $241.5 million and $59.8 million from the same period last year.
General fund spending was $17.5 billion, a $972.8 million decline compared to April and May 2009.
