In more bad financial news for the state, the legislature's nonpartisan fiscal office now says the state budget deficit has grown to a projected $144.5 million.

The Office of Fiscal Analysis released new numbers Wednesday night that say the state is spending more than expected and collecting less revenue than projected.

Only two months ago, the same office was estimating a surplus of about $100 million in an overall state budget of about $20 billion. But the state is not collecting tax money as quickly as expected, partly because Wall Street bonuses were lower than expected at Christmas. As a result, some major taxpayers in Fairfield County are not paying as much in taxes as originally hoped.

Overall, the state expects to collect $8.38 billion from the state income tax and $3.88 billion from the sales tax – the two biggest revenue generators by far. The tax on corporate profits is expected to generate $707 million in the current fiscal year, while another $444 million would be collected in cigarette taxes.

State officials are struggling to balance the budget through "lapses," which means that agencies are being ordered to spend less money than is allocated in their budgets. In other words, if an agency had a budget of $10 million, it might be ordered to spend only $9.5 million because of the difficult fiscal times and then essentially return $500,000 to the state.