BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana’s forecasting panel has slashed the state’s income projections by $1 billion because of the coronavirus outbreak.
That blows a hole in the upcoming year’s budget as the virus’s economic fallout threatens deep cuts across state services.
The estimates were set Monday by the Revenue Estimating Conference. They were the first attempt to quantify the damage done to Louisiana’s tax collections by the COVID-19 disease.
Louisiana has two separate problems depressing state tax collections: widespread unemployment and shuttered businesses from the virus outbreak and a resulting steep decline in oil prices worsened by an international feud.
It’s unclear how much federal coronavirus aid can help fill gaps.
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