State budget needs repairs that last

Payment delays, revenue speed-ups and other one-time accounting gimmicks are bound to tempt state lawmakers in coming months, as they attempt to close the $1.2 billion gap between spending and revenues that's developing in the current state budget.

But $3.8 billion in one-time measures are already at play in the current budget period, a legislative leadership panel was told Monday. Adding more would only widen a yawning budget gap projected for 2012-13. The projected cost of current state programs in 2012-13 is already 23.5 percent greater than the amount of the state's own (non-federal) resources it expects to spend in the current tw-year budget period.

Those figured underscore an important aspect of the fiscal work that awaits the 2010 Legislature. The state Constitution requires that lawmakers balance the spending and revenue sides of the state's ledger. Prudence, of both the fiscal and the political kind, adds that they do so in a way that does not make money problems worse in coming years. The $1.2 billion hole in the current budget should be plugged with on-going measures, not one-time tricks.

At Monday's meeting of a budget subcommittee of the Legislative Commission on Planning and Fiscal Policy, legislaive leaders indicated they are eager to turn their committees loose on that task. But they said their work cannot begin in earnest without the help of the state agency fiscal analysts who work for Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and are now occupied developing his recommendations for a budget fix. That work needs expediting.