State budget crises: curiouser and curiouser

Sunshine Review has been tracking the state budget crises that are happening in basically every state.

The crises continue to worsen. However, the story is more interesting than just a shortage of cash: the crises seem to be getting worse in many states. In January 2009, the expected budget shortfall for Alaska, for example, was $402 million. The current estimate places the shortfall now as $1.35 billion, a more than 200% increase.

In Florida, the shortfal was expected to be $2.3 billion, and is now $6 billion.

Illinois had a $2.5 billion shortfall last year, which is now $7.29 billion.

Wisconsin’s shortfall grew from $593 million to $3.1 billion.

Sunshine Review discovered these changes when checking the history tab in the state budget article. One unique advantage to the wiki format is being able to track changes in a news story as they happen and compare the current version of an article to an older version. To see the changes, click here and scroll down.