CARSON CITY - At the request of Gov. Jim Gibbons, the Economic Forum is meeting today to come up with a projection for the state's budget shortfall.  The forum is examining projections on a dozen different revenue sources from the legislative counsel bureau, the budget division and the various governmental agencies that oversee revenue collection.

Since Gibbons' call for a special session of the legislature last week, key legislators and the governor's office have remained far apart on estimates of just how much in spending cuts or increased revenue will be necessary to make the state solvent.  The governor's budget office predicts a shortfall of approximately $240 million, while the LCB expects closer to $100 million.

Key Democratic legislators, including Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Senate Minority Leader Steven Horsford, have said that a special session of the legislature is unnecessary, that their estimate of the budget shortfall can be addressed through the Interim Finance Committee process.

With three revenue sources examined thus far, live entertainment, gaming and sales taxes, the forum is poised to predict a much worse economic outlook than legislators like Buckley and Horsford have predicted.

The forum projected that live entertainment taxes would be approximately $4 million lower than LCB estimates in the current biennium, that gaming taxes would be approximately $33 million lower and that sales taxes would be nearly $71 million lower than legislators expect.

"I think this is a time to be conservative," said forum member Cathy Santoro, senior vice president and treasurer of MGM Mirage.  "I don't think anyone expects conditions to improve in the short term."

While the forum is binding during regular sessions of the Nevada legislature, lawmakers will not necessarily have to abide by its projections next week.

"I think [the forum's projections] are very important," said Andrew Clinger, Gibbons' budget director.  "They're going to give all parties a number that everybody can agree to hopefully."

"They didn't take our forecast, they didn't take the legislature's forecast, they sort of picked in the middle, which is kind of what we expected them to do."

A final forecast is expected when the forum wraps up its work this afternoon.