Vt. Economy Hits Bottom; Revenue Forecast Up A Bit

DAVE GRAM

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont's economy apparently is turning a corner but heading into a slow, painful recovery, state budget officials were told Thursday.

"It's going to be a couple of tough years still," Gov. Jim Douglas said after the state Emergency Board heard from consulting economists for the administration and the Legislature. "Unemployment is still going up. Personal income for Vermonters is still declining. This is going to be a long, slow recovery."

Economists Jeffrey Carr for the administration and Tom Kavet for the Legislature told the Emergency Board, made up of Douglas and the chairs of the Legislature's budget and tax committees, that it could be 2013 before the state makes a full recovery.

But a glimmer of hope could be seen in separate reports filed by the two, whose slightly different approaches produce a revenue forecast that administration and legislative officials work from as they draft a state spending plan.

After a string of steep downturns in the forecasts, Carr and Kavet were able to revise their figures for the state general fund for the current fiscal year upward by $1.6 million. That's a tiny uptick in a pot of money expected to total more than $1 billion.