New Year Off to a “Slow Start,” Gov. Brown’s Budget Writers Say

So begins the March Finance Bulletin from the Democratic governor’s Department of Finance. The next sentences read:

“Employment indicators were contradictory—a small loss of nonfarm jobs but the unemployment rate improved. Construction activity slowed, as did the real estate market.”

Elsewhere the bulletin notes that the median price of a single-family California home sold in January fell to $268,280 — down nearly 4 percent from a year earlier. This due to an increase in sales of “distressed homes.” There’s faive and a half months of unsold inventory — up from a little voer four months in December. 

Estimates in Brown’s budget for the amount of taxes — sales, corporate and income — the state would collect in January were close, off only $22 million. 

For teh fiscal year, which began July 1, collections are $676 million below estimates, $615 million of that shortfall in personal income tax receipts. 

Although sales tax were $43 million below projections, a chunk of January collections will appear in February because the remainder of the final payments for fourth quarter 2011 aren’t due until January 31, the bulletin notes. 

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