Budget in turmoil as deficit hits $16 billion

With tax receipts down dramatically, California’s budget shortfall has zoomed to $16 billion, Gov. Brown said in video statement on YouTube.

The Democratic governor, poised to unveil a rewritten budget on Monday for the 2012-13 fiscal year that begins in six weeks, said “we are now facing a $16 billion hole, not the $9 billion we thought in January. This means we will have to go much further and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year.”

Gov. Brown already has proposed deep cuts in an array of state services, especially in social services, and met with union representatives last week to discuss looming cuts to the state workforce.

Since January, when Brown proposed his draft budget for the new fiscal year, tax receipts have come in some $3 billion below projections – the estimates upon which the revenue piece of the state budget proposal was built. In April alone, revenues came in $2 billion shy of projections.

On Monday, the governor will present the May Revision, which incorporates the latest numbers from the April 15 income tax deadline.