Ouch: State coffers take another $482m hit

Washington's battered economy is slowly stabilizing, but the state treasury has just taken another $482 million hit and Governor Gregoire has immediately ordered a new round of spending restrictions. The state Economic & Revenue Forecast Council, a bipartisan panel of lawmakers and Gregoire's revenue and budget directors, has just adopted a grim new update that whacks $185 million from the forecast for the remaining days of the fiscal year and nearly $300 million for the '09-11 biennium that starts on July 1. Chief economist Arun Raha has plenty of positive things to say, despite the haymaker that brings the last two forecasts down by more than $1 billion. "It increasingly appears that we are finally approaching the end of this Great Recession" and the state and national economies are stablizing, he says.

"The free-fall phase of the recession is over, and the trough is in sight."

Job losses have slowed, housing starts and car sales have stopped declining, home sales are up and consumer spending is stabilizing. "Boeing's order book is full and Microsoft's balance sheet is still quite healthy." Still, the new hit soaks up virtually all of the state's reserves, and Gregoire has just directed agencies to trim their employee costs by 2 percent from what is budgeted for the new biennium, and to clamp down on other costs, like travel, equipment and private-sector contracts. Want more? Here is the council's news release and here is the full-meal-deal report. The governor's budget office has this for you.