FRANKFORT — While attention has focused on the failure of the General Assembly to put together a budget for the coming two years, the far more pressing problem is state spending for the next six weeks.

        Flagging receipts to Kentucky's General Fund make a revenue shortfall a near certainty on June 30, and the state cannot finish its fiscal year with a deficit.

        Budget director James Ramsey said the rainy-day fund, which has already been tapped twice to make up for earlier projected shortfalls, may again be hit to balance the books.

        The budget reserve fund, which once totaled $280 million, is now down to $120 million, but could also be the only source of cash to equalize spending and accounts. “We'll have to do whatever we have to do,” Mr. Ramsey said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “We'll be balanced on June 30th.”

        Despite some earlier optimism, April's revenue receipts were actually below the same month a year ago. And through the first 10 months of the fiscal year, receipts are 0.7 percent below last fiscal year. To meet budget needs, revenue must grow by 0.9 percent overall for the year.

        “There will be a shortfall. How much, we don't know,” Mr. Ramsey said.

        Mr. Ramsey said budget officials are scrambling to save what money they can for the next six weeks, but with the fiscal year virtually over, there is little place to look.

        “Those decisions are going to get tougher and tougher,” said Sen. Richie Sanders, R-Franklin, chairman of the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee.

        “It's getting late in the year and not much we can do,” Mr. Ramsey agreed.

        The Consensus Forecasting Group, the panel of economists charged with making the state's official revenue estimates, is scheduled to meet on June 4, but by then the die will already be cast.

        Mr. Ramsey said June's revenue receipts will be critical. Nearly half of the annual declaration payments for corporate income taxes are made in June and a significant portion of individual income tax payments. But it has been corporate tax receipts that have dragged down the General Fund this year, nearly 40 percent below last year's figures.

        The legislature failed during its 60-day regular session and during an eight-day special session last month to pass a budget. The shortfall this year will complicate matters for next year, if Gov. Paul Patton calls another special session before July.

        The basic budget proposed by Mr. Patton and the versions approved separately by the House and Senate all depend on $37 million that was estimated to be left over from this fiscal year. That money will simply not be there, leaving a hole to start from.

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