DOF: Revenue Falls Short

The California Department of Finance said Wednesday that state revenues in January came in $630 million below forecasts in the Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal.

Personal income tax revenues were $679 million below the budget projections of $7.8 billion for the month. Sales tax revenues rose $89 million in January compared to the budget forecast, according to the department.

Last week, state Controller John Chiang said state revenues last month came in $528 million below the proposed spending plan.

Earlier this month, Chiang warned lawmakers California would run out of cash starting at the end of the month unless it adopted $3.3 billion of short-term measures to tackle the problem.

The measures include borrowing up to $1 billion through a supplemental revenue anticipation note sale before March. The state will use payment deferrals and internal borrowing to fill the rest of the cash gap.

In January, Brown unveiled a $92.6 billion spending plan for fiscal 2013 that attempts to tackle a deficit of $9.2 billion with cuts and tax hikes.

The budget leans heavily on passing a tax initiative to raise nearly $7 billion that would help close the gap by temporarily raising sales and income taxes on the wealthy.

If voters reject the tax plan, additional cuts, mostly to education, would be triggered.

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