Friends- Before I get to the updates this week, I want to alert you to the fact that, due to election year restrictions that kick in Dec. 1, I will be unable to send these legislative updates to you during our upcoming 2010 legislative session unless you ask for it . Many of you have already responded...

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Friends- Before I get to the updates this week, I want to alert you to the fact that, due to election year restrictions that kick in Dec. 1, I will be unable to send these legislative updates to you during our upcoming 2010 legislative session unless you ask for it . Many of you have already responded...

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One of the below the surface storylines from yesterday's shocker of a revenue forecast involves questions about the state's ability to accurately project what tax collections will be over time.

Arun Raha, the state's chief economist, has acknowledged that models being used today are producing misleading results, leading to big changes in projections later. And those projections are important because they're used to write actual budgets.

But it turns out this problem not a phenomenon that is unique to Washington. Stateline.org has a good story posted about other states experiencing the same problem at a time of economic upheaval that is simply unprecedented in modern times.

Sen. Rodney Tom, a Bellevue Democrat and vice-chairman of the Senate's budget-writing Ways and Means Committee, appeared on TVW's Inside Olympia program Thursday to discuss the state's budget situation following the release of a new revenue forecast. Check it out below....

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Below you'll find video of Sen. Rodney Tom, a Bellevue Democrat and vice chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Ross Hunter, a Medina Democrat and chairman of the House Finance Committee, holding court with reporters after the adoption of a new revenue forecast on Thursday....

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Sen. Rodney Tom, a Bellevue Democrat and vice-chairman of the Senate's budget-writing Ways and Means Committee, appeared on TVW's Inside Olympia program Thursday to discuss the state's budget situation following the release of a new revenue forecast. Check it out below.

In just two short months, on January 10 th , I’ll be heading back to Olympia to start the 2010 legislative session, and we’ll have our work cut out for us. Just a year after tackling a $9 billion budget deficit – the largest in our state’s history - we’re faced with another...

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More than 129,000 American children remain in foster care, waiting to be adopted. Currently there are more than 1,800 foster children in Washington State alone of which over 200 are in Snohomish County. November 20th has been proclaimed Adoption Day throughout the State of Washington by Governor Chris...

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Below you'll find video of Sen. Rodney Tom, a Bellevue Democrat and vice chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Ross Hunter, a Medina Democrat and chairman of the House Finance Committee, holding court with reporters after the adoption of a new revenue forecast this morning. The new forecast...

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10:32 UPDATE: Victor Moore, the state's budget director, says the budget shortfall has now swelled to $2.6 billion. Asked about how the hole may be plugged, Moore said, "I don't quite see the path yet. We're working on it." "It's getting to be kind of numbing."

10:29 UPDATE: Revenues for the current biennium are now expected to be 3.3 percent lower than the 2007-09 budget cycle.

Raha has now concluded his presentation and the forecast has just been adopted. The floor has been opened to questions from the press.

10:23 UPDATE: Income from the state's real estate excise tax has started to grow but revenues from revenues from the retail sales and business and occupation tax are "failing to improve" even if they have "reached bottom."

10:20 UPDATE: Exports will help the Washington economy outpace the nation's. But employment growth is expected to be quite slow and may not pick up in earnest until the third quarter of 2010.

10:18 UPDATE: "We got a small boost from cash for clunkers, but it's gone now," Raha said. He said the program may have only expedited new car purchases that would have occurred anyway and that the positive impact of additional purchases has been marginal.

10:15 UPDATE: Raha is focusing on impacts on small businesses, which are expected to produce most of the new jobs the state will experience. But small businesses are still finding it hard to get loans from local banks, in part because of banks' overexposure to the commercial real estate market. This is one factor that will slow our recovery, Raha said.

10:10 UPDATE: The forecast itself and related documents have now been posted on the Council's website.

10:07: UPDATE: Raha said the forecasting model being used is producing misleading results, as revenues have repeatedly fallen short of forecasts. "I should have been more wary of our model," Raha said.

10:04 UPDATE: The meeting has started. "The good news is the economy is finally recovering," Raha said. "The bad news is revenue is not."

He notes the revenue forecast for the current two year budget cycle has dropped by a whopping $4.6 billion since February, 2008.

10:00 UPDATE: Here's the news, according to handouts that are being distributed right now, and it's not pretty. Revenue is expected to be down by $760 million for the rest of the 2009-11 biennium. That should easily push the budget shortfall past the $2 billion mark, but we should hear confirmation of that over the next hour.

9:50 A.M.: We're set up in Senate Hearing Room 3 of the John A. Cherberg Building here on the Capitol campus awaiting the 10 a.m. release of a new state revenue forecast that will be used by the governor to write her budget proposal. That plan is due out next month. The House and Senate will then begin crafting their plans when they convene their 2010 legislative session Jan. 11.

No one is expecting state's Chief Economist Arun Raha to present good news and another drop in anticipated tax collections is anticipated. But we'll know for sure in just a few minutes.