The pandemic boom times are over for state lawmakers — and so is their ability to shower big buckets of cash on top priorities like K-12 education while also slashing taxes and socking away reserves.

State budgets swelled by roughly 30 percent over a three-year span as the country grappled with fallout from the public health crisis and Congress handed out federal funds to governments across the country.

Now, states from Massachusetts to Indiana to California are facing falling revenues or lower-than-projected tax receipts for the first time since the economy screeched to a halt in 2020. In some cases, they’re also seeing record surpluses vanish — and transform into looming deficits. It means state lawmakers and governors of both parties will face increasing political peril as they navigate rougher financial conditions.

“We cannot spend money we do not have. Pandemic funds from Washington have dried up,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said during Tuesday’s State of the State speech. New York is facing a $4.3 billion deficit in the fiscal year that starts in April. “It’s up to all of us to make the hard yet necessary decisions and use taxpayer dollars creatively and responsibly.”

The biggest driver of the last few years was massive injection of pandemic cash: States received nearly 60 percent more federal funding in fiscal 2023 than they collected four years earlier, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.

But state coffers were also boosted by robust tax collections — general fund revenues exceeded projections in 46 states in fiscal 2023 — as the economy continued to defy dour expectations. Despite widespread predictions that the country was headed into a recessionary ditch, it now appears that the economy is poised for a soft........

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