Fresh news out of the state Revenue Forecast Council is that tax receipts for the past month are down $40 million from levels expected in the November forecast that Governor Gregoire used as the basis for her budget proposals. 

Believe it or not, that’s sort of good news, since it’s no worse than forecasters predicted last month.

It’s true that since the November forecast, our shortfall has grown by nearly $240 million, but since the council produced an informal update last month, it hasn’t dropped any further. Indeed, main tax account is actually $52 million above the February update, due almost entirely to tax refunds that will be postponed for a while. Even if the refund checks had been mailed out, the report from Eric Swenson, senior forecaster, indicates that the February forecast for Revenue Act income wouldn’t have dropped further in the mid-March update.

Yup, that’s what passes for good news in this town.

The official Forecast from Hell comes out a week from Thursday. It’s explained to leave a ballpark $8.5 billion budget gap that the Democratic-controlled Legislature will set about filling.  (Obama bucks, cuts, salary freezes, fund-grabs, and so forth will all be used, and probably a revenue package of some sort for the ballot.)

The report says retail, car sales, construction, manufacturing and other sectors remain quite weak. For a look at the whole report, including a zigzag charter of tax collections, go here.