NEWS CONFERENCE 959

mental use than this administration. Then, as a result of the tax
bill, somewhere in the neighborhood of $1, 000, 000 additional was
allocated the local governments to assist in education and public
safety. Now while this was not health money it relieved the need for
the county to use its own general fund productivity with the property
tax in order to divert some of the monies that they may have had to
put in education into health services. We also gave them the flexi-
bility, you will remember, of seeking another revenue source — the
income tax as well as the property tax. So we are simply saying this:
that, yes, they may have to make some, selective cuts; but no one has
been hurt more, as far as having to pull in the belt, than the State.
And there was no way to predict the deficiencies that I know of — we
still haven't understood fully why the revenue estimating was as bad
as it was. No useful purpose will be served by attempting to simply
assign blame, but I would say that we certainly had better be a lot
more careful — those who are responsible for estimating revenues —
in the future, because we can't afford cutbacks of this type too fre-
quently.

Q. How do you expect to accomplish this, Governor? You said they
should be more careful in estimating the budget?

A. Estimating the revenues. I think that the revenue estimating
process is one that should be a continual process, and as you know we
received on separate dates ideas of what we would expect to have,
and as recently as February of 1968 we had no idea that we were
facing this crisis that we face. Had we had an idea that we'd be
facing it, we could have done something about it while the Legislature
was in session. It doesn't seem to me to be practicable to expect that
those who are to judge the productivity of the various taxes should
be so totally ignorant of what these taxes are producing — that far
on into the fiscal year — that they couldn't make some adjustments
in their predictions.

Q. The latest estimates of the revenue shortage indicate a $40 mil-
lion to $50 million lag. You announced today that you are able to
make up $11 million of this. What plans do you have to make up the
other $30 to $40 million of this?

A. Well I think there are several things that are going to affect that
figure before we get much further on into this year. And there are
also quite a few unknowns in that projection for fiscal 1969. I'll
have reports on what we are going to do on that later on, but it's
my belief that we are going to be able to cope with the figure; and