SAN FRANCISCO — California Controller John Chiang said Friday state revenues came in $528 million below forecasts last month in Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget.
The controller said when compared to last year’s budget, January revenues fell $1.2 billion below estimates.
Chiang warned lawmakers earlier this month that the state would run out of cash starting at the end of the month unless it adopted $3.3 billion worth of short-term measure to tackle the problem.
Those measures include the state 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.
“January revenues were disappointing on almost every front,” Chiang said in a statement Friday. “Thankfully the decisive actions taken recently by the state to stabilize its cash flow will ensure that California can pay its bills through the end of the fiscal year.”
The controller’s office said when compared to the governor’s proposed fiscal 2013 budget, personal income taxes last month fell $525 million, or 5.5%, while corporate taxes dipped $128 million, or 48%. Sales tax collections rose $43 million, or 5.6% above estimates in the budget.
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 help close the gap by temporarily raising sales taxes and income taxes on the wealthy.
If voters nix the tax plan, additional cuts, mostly to education, would be triggered.
The Department of Finance will release its revenue update for January next week.
