The Second Fiscal Crisis: Preparing for the Funding Cliff

This link goes to an executive summary. The longer article is available as a PDF, from a link on that page:

The current recession—the worst in 60 years—has blown open gaps in states’ budgets. States had to close a $102 billion budget shortfall in wrapping up their fiscal year 2009 balance sheets, which ended June 30 in all but four states. Cutting funding to higher education was a strategy used in 31 states to mend these shortfalls. Yet states face another $121 billion in deficits in fiscal year 2010, and already a few state budget directors have predicted $45 billion in awaiting deficits for the following year. Tax revenues from all sources—sales, personal and corporate income—are down, dramatically in many cases, in most states. So far in this recession, the number of jobs lost is more than twice that of the downturn in 1981 and 1982.

- Daniel J. Hurley, The Second Fiscal Crisis: Preparing for the Funding Cliff, Public Purpose, September/October 2009