PROVIDENCE –– Having barely recovered from the last budget battle, state leaders on Tuesday learned that Rhode Island’s battered economy is largely responsible for creating another gaping budget hole.

This one, conservatively projected at $200 million for the fiscal year that began July 1, was agreed upon by the state’s top budget officials in what has become a painful annual exercise known as the November Revenue Estimating Conference.

“It’s extremely bleak,” said House Finance Committee chairman Steven M. Costantino, considered the legislature’s budget architect. “Let’s hope at some point this stabilizes.”

The projection comes just four months after the General Assembly adopted a slew of budget changes –– trimming pension benefits for thousands of state workers and teachers, wiping out revenue-sharing for cities and towns, and raising the gas tax, among them –– intended to balance this year’s budget, as required by law.

It became clear Tuesday that those unpopular decisions did not go far enough.

And state leaders will be under increasing pressure in the coming weeks and months to consider such things as tax or fee increases, further cuts to cash-strapped municipalities and reduced government services.

“State and local officials may wish for a rosier picture, but as leaders, and stewards of our future, we have the very unpleasant but critical task of managing our way through what is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” Governor Carcieri said in a statement. “We know that the old way of doing business that has contributed to our fiscal crisis must be abandoned.”

State law requires leaders of the House and Senate fiscal offices and the governor’s budget office to meet twice a year to update revenue and some spending levels that largely determine the size of state budget deficits — or surpluses — for the current and coming fiscal years.

The numbers have fallen consistently since 2007, when Rhode Island entered what economists are calling “The Great Recession.” On Tuesday, budget officials determined that overall revenues this year would fall by $130.5 million from projections set in May.

Losses were topped by the sales and use tax (down $64 million, or 7.1 percent), the income tax (down $44 million, or 2.3 percent) and business corporation tax (down $18.9 million, or 9.9 percent).

“From a big picture perspective, the revenues that we’re going to take in for sales tax, for example, are pretty much at the level they were for 2002 and 2003,” said the governor’s budget officer Rosemary Booth Gallogly. The deficit is exacerbated by roughly $15 million needed to cover unanticipated increases in the cost of health and welfare programs for low-income residents, and a general fund deficit of $61.8 million from the previous fiscal year.

Knowing that this week’s numbers would be bad, the Assembly last week approved a joint resolution asking Carcieri to submit a “corrective action” budget plan by Nov. 16. That’s months before Carcieri submitted such a plan, known as a supplemental budget, last year.

The governor will not meet the deadline, according to Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe.

“The joint resolution is not a mandate. We understand it’s an advisory,” she said, noting that the governor’s office has spoken to legislative leaders about the deadline. “I think we all recognize the agencies are developing a plan.”

Asked when Carcieri’s proposals would be ready, Kempe responded: “When it’s ready.”

The part-time legislature was not scheduled to return to Smith Hill for formal legislative business until early January. The House Finance Committee, however, has scheduled a Nov. 23 hearing to review the “budget status.”

Chairman Costantino, sponsor of the joint resolution, acknowledged that next week’s deadline would not be met. “In terms of budgeting, time is the enemy,” Costantino said. “Hopefully, this corrective-action plan is going to come immediately.”

The governor’s office would not reveal Tuesday what his specific plans would be, although Carcieri outlined what it wouldn’t be.

“Whatever our course of action, we must avoid raising taxes to solve this problem,” he said, suggesting that further cuts to cities and towns may be on the horizon.

When asked whether he would support tax increases, Costantino refused to comment.

speoples@projo.com