Oregon Public Broadcasting

SALEM, Ore. - Oregon lawmakers will have even less money to work with in order to keep the current spending plan in balance. State economists Wednesday forecasted that state revenues would be about 35 million dollars lower than they predicted three months ago.

Acting state economist Mark McMullen told a legislative panel that this forecast may be down, but the long-term outlook is still positive.

"Although the pace of job creation is still glacial, we've seen really broad-based improvement across a wide range of industries and occupations," McMullen said. "And even the worse off of industries, now the bleeding has really stopped."

The relatively flat forecast was more-or-less good news for state lawmakers. The previous two forecasts ate up a $300 million hole in expected revenues.

Legislative budget-writers have released a proposal last week that would rebalance the two-year spending plan with a series of cuts. Wednesday's revenue forecast isn't expected to dramatically change the proposal.

On the Web:

Oregon revenue forecast:

http://www.oea.das.state.or.us/DAS/OEA/docs/economic/revenue.pdf

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