Metro

NY short $436M in taxes

ALBANY — Tax collections were $436 million short of initial projections in the first half of New York’s fiscal year and would need to grow 6.4 percent in the second to make up for the shortfall, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli warned yesterday.

“The economic recovery continues to be weak, and financial risks remain,” said DiNapoli, who blamed volatile economic conditions and uncertainty in the financial sector for collections coming in 0.2 percent below the same period last year.

He noted the $132.6 billion state budget counts on $250 million in proceeds from health-insurance plan privatization and $129 million from Indian-run casinos that may not materialize.

And he cautioned the state could lose federal funds if Congress can’t avoid automatic cuts scheduled for Jan. 1. Those “sequester” cuts were part of a deal to raise the federal debt limit.

Cuomo-administration budget spokesman Morris Peters said forecasts called for more growth in the second half of the fiscal year but said officials are monitoring revenues.

This will be the sixth straight year state budgeters overestimated anticipated tax collections if the state misses the mark for the fiscal year that ends next March 31, DiNapoli said.