A Challenge to Local News-Organizations

Not that anyone from "local news organizations" reads this blog daily...

But a few days ago, I called two local news heavyweights and left messages suggesting that it would be VERY informative if they were to obtain and publish the State of Wisconsin's [fiscal] Y-T-D revenues for 7/1/07 through 9/30/07--and the comparable '06 revenue figures.

There's a lot of blog-talk about 'natural' State-revenue growth of a $billion or so, but there is NO "hard" information source which backs that assertion.

And as a well-informed commenter put it on the Boots & Sabers blog:

Oh, how about the fact that the State still hasn’t revised the revenue growth projection of $1.2 billion in natural growth. The economy has already softened and may get much worse. Here is another growing hole.

Why the interest?

The State of Georgia noted a decline in sales-tax revenues from '06 to '07 comprable periods. It isn't much of a decrease, but it's real.

Now look again at the rest of the commenter's remarks:

...once again, the State will increase spending by at least 7% and fail to fund it completely in any real way

...referring to the extreeeeeeeeme bonding in the "compromise" budget AND the cigarette-tax, which simply will NOT produce the $400 million in projected revenues.

Let's see if any local news-folks dig into the numbers--and as a followup, whether they actually press the State Treasurer for on-line daily reporting of revenue/expense numbers.

(Of course, that means that the State Treasurer may have to learn the definitions of those terms.)