May 17, 2004

Surplus: Another Reporter Gets It Wrong

Tennessee AP reporter Tom Sharp manages to write a whole story about Tennessee's legislature and the state budget without mentioning the state's rapidly growing surplus, expected to top $256 million during the current fiscal year. Amazing.

Even more amazing: The Tennessean, which dutifully reported the state's revenue picture monthly when the numbers seemed to support (or could be spun to support) the push for a state income tax, now ignores them when the state is piling up large surpluses. A search of Google News also finds no mention of it in the Memphis, Knoxville or Chattanooga papers, although the data was released early enough Friday to have been published Saturday, Sunday or today.

Skip Cauthorn at Nashville City Paper does report the surplus - but he gets the numbers wrong. Memo to Skip and the rest of the press corps: When the administration tells you there's a $93 million surplus this year, they are LYING to you. The truth is, the state already has $239.5 million more revenue than it estimated for the first nine months of revenue collection for the current fiscal year - and $239.5 million more than is needed to balance the budget. And Finance & Administration now expects the surplus to reach $256 million this year. The administration has already decided how it wants to spend $163 million of the surplus - leaving $93 million as yet unspoken for - but the administration's plans are not yet set in stone.

Really, people. A part-time blogger can get the data and do the math. So, why is it so hard for full-time paid reporters to read the revenue report and check out the spread sheet, do some basic math, and report the truth? Memo to the Tennessee media, especially the reporters who write about the legislature: F&A posts the report online every month. So does the Department of Revenue, here. And you can get the spread sheet each month via email from Rick Newton at F&A. Just send him an email.

And if all that seems to difficult, just check here at HobbsOnline on a regular basis, because I faithfully report the revenue data every month and provide my readers much more comprehensive coverage of Tennessee tax and budget news than Tennessee's news media.

UPDATE: A reader emails me a snippet from reporter Joe White's coverage at The Nashville Bureau, a subscription-only site that offers good coverage of the Tennessee legislature. White says, accurately:

The good news from the Revenue Department was that revenues continued to rise. The bad news was that the legislature wanted to spend it. April revenues came in almost $98 million over budgeted estimates, most of that ($92.4 million) in the general fund.

For nine months, year-to-date, the state was $239.5 million ahead of the game, with $225.5 million of that in the general fund.

Meanwhile, hats off to the Bredesen administration for artfully spinning a $256 million expected surplus until it looks like only $93 million. You're almost as good at misleading the public as your predecessor.