Gov. Jim Doyle said Thursday that state government faces a budget deficit of nearly $5.4 billion through mid-2011, $400 million more than he estimated only days ago.
Doyle said he was taking immediate steps to start to shore up the budget by selling 500 vehicles, leaving 2,800 jobs vacant and not filling 700 openings expected through retirements and other attrition, ending the practice of giving some workers bonuses and canceling up to $30 million in grants.
Those cuts are a down payment on the $346 million deficit that state government faces by June 30. Doyle and legislators could fix that separately with a second budget-repair bill in a year or include those changes in the budget he will propose early next year. The two-year budget that begins July 1 is off by more than $5 billion.