Elmont Online

ALBANY -- Tax revenue for the first half of this fiscal year is nearly $400 million below projections, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli warned on Wednesday -- the latest serving of anxious fiscal news from the state's fiscal watchdog.

Growth in revenue collections in several major categories -- including personal income tax, sales tax and business taxes -- are lagging. "If these trends continue, the state may need to adjust its revenue projections downward," DiNapoli said in a statement accompanying the release of the September cash report.

While the actual amount collected is up 12.6 percent over the same period last year, it remains $391.9 million short of projections.

Moreover, the nearly 18.3 percent rise in income tax revenue reflects settlements from 2010 rather than the current economy, the comptroller added. Overall, year-to-date income tax collections were $16.5 million lower than projections.

The state's general fund had a balance of $4.9 billion at the end of September.

Wednesday's report offered some contrast to the first-quarter results in July, when tax collections were running $799 million ahead of predictions.

At the time, however, DiNapoli cautioned that those figures could reflect merely the timing of tax payments, with a lot of receipts arriving early in the year.

The state fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31.

Planning for the upcoming budget year and the 2012 legislative session will start in earnest in November with the annual "Quick Start" process. Representatives from the governor as well as the four legislative conferences will meet to review state finances and get a jump on the job of crafting a new state budget -- and perhaps balancing the current one.

Quick Start stemmed from reforms enacted by lawmakers in 2007.

State government already is looking at the need to close a budget gap: Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this month said a $2 billion gap will have to be closed, and sagging profits on Wall Street could cause that deficit to grow even larger.

Last week, DiNapoli released numbers suggesting that the state's financial services industry could shed as many as 10,000 jobs before the end of 2012, and was certain to see a major drop in the bonus payments that provide a significant percentage of state revenues.

If that takes place, it would bring total job losses in the securities industry to 32,000 since January 2008.

Still, neither legislative leaders nor Cuomo has shown an inclination to return to Albany for a special session before the Legislature is slated to kick off their regular work in January.

At a Cabinet meeting last week, Cuomo responded to a question about DiNapoli's report on potential Wall Street job losses by noting that state Budget Director Robert Megna had delivered a number of budget reports since the beginning of the fiscal year -- one in which the numbers were up, one in which they were down, and another in which they were "kind of static."

"And he was right on each occasion, by the way," the governor said. "I think when you look at the snapshots, they can be misleading."

State Editor Casey Seiler contributed. Reach Karlin at 454-5758 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .