Gov expects to make budget cuts

By Bob Beck

Laramie, WY – Governor Dave Freudenthal says preliminary budget projections show that the state will need to cut roughly 325 million dollars from the state budget. He says this must be done by July first, "The thing that is fundamentally driving this is the fact that the price of natural gas is a little less than one third today of what it was a year ago. The consequences of that are pretty clear in that when that price drops by two thirds, it has consequences all through the system."
Freudenthal says the cuts will need to come from a variety of sources, noting that a ten percent cut of state agency budgets would only get the state about halfway there. However, Freudenthal is going to try to preserve capital construction money in the budget, because he believes that will maintain jobs across the state.