Doyle Uses Wish List Numbers to Estimate Budget Deficit

Doyle is up to his old tricks. 

The governor’s $3 billion budget deficit is based on “funny numbers,” since they assume state agencies would get the 8% spending increase they originally requested, said Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem).

Assembly Majority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) said: “It is not surprising that the state budget is out of balance with the slowing economy. The surprising part is Gov. Doyle is using the inflated numbers of agency requests — a wish list of increases in spending.”

So when he says this…

The actual deficit figure could be more than $3 billion, but a more precise amount won’t be known until Nov. 20, when Budget Director Dave Schmiedicke must estimate future tax collections and how much spending state agencies request for 2009-’11. Agencies must submit budgets with the 10% cut on Nov. 17.

...what does it really mean?  10% cut of what - a cut in the the submitted budget requests or in the budget from last cycle?  For example, let’s say that an agency had a budget of $100 million last year.  The agency head submitted a budget request of $108 million.  Now Doyle wants him to “cut” 10%.  Does that mean that the agency head will cut 10% off of the $108 million figure, resulting in a request for $97.2 million (a scant 2.8% actual cut), or does the agency head take the 10% off of the $100 million figure, resulting in a request for $90 million.  If history is any guide, the answer is the former and the alleged proposed “cuts” are much smaller than Doyle is pretending them to be.