The River Region Chamber of Commerce announces its support for a balanced approach of cutting state spending and then raising additional revenue to balance the state’s budget for FY 16 and also FY 17.

The Chamber urges the Governor and Legislature to address the spending side of the budget first by submitting strong and specific assurances for budget cuts, controls and cost containment prior to adopting any tax increases.

Thus, we request the Governor do the following:

• Provide a fiscal framework of how he expects the various budget and revenue measures will result in a sustainable balanced budget.

• Pledge to provide a list of specific assurances for cutting, controlling and containing expenditures.

• Ask the Legislature to join him in this pledge.

The businesses of this state are very concerned that higher taxes will be imposed on them to provide the revenue to maintain state spending at its present level. This could be disastrous to the state’s economy as it may result in shrinkage of many companies doing business in the state and cancellation of expansion plans of existing facilities and/or cancellation of plans by companies to locate facilities in the state.

In addition to the potential of higher taxes, the risk of major cuts to higher education and the technical and community college systems will make it nearly impossible to fill a workforce gap for current and future projects.

Business and industry have provided matches to state construction funding for these institutions over the years, which supply over 60 percent of the workforces to expand facilities and grow programs.

— Submitted by the River Region Chamber of Commerce.