Oklahoma follows up last year's $1.3 billion budget shortfall with another drop for fiscal year 2018.
The State Board of Equalization certified a fiscal year 2018 budget projection Wednesday $868.8 million less than this year's.
Gov. Mary Fallin will craft a budget to present to lawmakers at February's state of the state address.
"Listen, we've found ourselves in this position before, and we're going to provide the governor with a lot of options to mitigate the challenges that we face," said State Finance Secretary Preston Doerflinger.
The smaller budget will mean more cuts to state agencies for fiscal year 2018. State Treasurer Ken Miller said that won't, however, fix the real issue.
"For those that say that we don't have a revenue problem, I will say this: You don't have to say it with words, because your actions are showing that," Miller said. "If you have to use half a billion dollars every single year in your budget to spend more than your recurring revenues will allow, that is de facto admittance that there is a revenue problem."
The 13 percent drop from the fiscal year 2017 budget comes largely from a loss of more than $600 million in one-time funding.
Doerflinger and Fallin said lawmakers will focus next session on finding revenue. Preliminary ideas include broadening the sales tax and raising the cigarette tax.
A separate preliminary board finding Wednesday means will be no personal income tax cut for Oklahomans to ring in 2018.
A 0.15 percent cut would have been triggered if revenue growth certified by the Board of Equalization would cover the cut's estimated $98 million price tag. What the board certified was a $96 million revenue decrease.
Miller said the triggers enacted by lawmakers in 2014 are poorly designed.
"I'm not a fan of triggers in general, but, certainly, I think if most had the chance to do it over again, they wouldn't time a tax cut to take hold when you're in a recession, as we've been in Oklahoma," Miller said.
Mid-year cuts this year are not expected. Though revenues for the current fiscal year are down, they're down less than the 5 percent that triggers a revenue failure, something that happened twice in fiscal year 2016.
Figures for the fiscal year 2018 budget will be reviewed again by lawmakers in February.
