$57-million shortfall in FY 17 Budget; Reeves, Gunn attribute it to “staff error.”

Today, Mississippi’s top three leaders blamed their staff members for a $57-million error in the state’s budget for Fiscal Year 2017.

Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves and Speaker of the House Phillip Gunn said the error is because expected state tax revenues had been overstated. “Late last week, we were made aware of a staff error that led to expected general fund revenues to be overestimated by $56.8-million during the FY2017 budget negotiations,” they said in a joint press release.

Governor Phil Bryant confirmed that the error had occurred. “We were moving into this newly designed budget process,” said the governor.

Bryant, Reeves and Gunn all asserted that the error — about one percent of the state’s $5.8-billion general fund budget —  is nothing to worry about. They said, for example, that the shortfall would simply disappear if the state collects $57-million more than it expects to collect in the first half of the coming fiscal year. Reeves and Gunn said that, if no such miracle came to pass, they would fix the problem in next year’s session of the legislature. (“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”)

Any of our readers who are concerned about this error should simply view this brief video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE)