Zahira Torres | The El Paso Times

AUSTIN — Texas may be slowly adding jobs and sales tax revenues might be improving slightly, but lawmakers could still face a budget deficit of up to $15 billion next year, state officials said Monday.

John Heleman, the chief revenue estimator for the Comptroller’s Office, said the state added about 30,000 jobs in January, mostly through temporary agencies.

Preliminary estimates also show that sales tax collections were down 8.8 percent in February compared with a year ago, he said.

But that is an improvement from the double-digit declines of the past several months.

“One month certainly doesn’t make a trend, but it’s encouraging to see that we’ve now begun to move in the right direction,” Heleman said.

Still, John O’Brien, executive director of the Legislative Budget Board, reminded members of the House Appropriations Committee that they would likely face at least an $11 billion deficit the next time they meet to write the budget.

That “conservative” estimate assumes that the state does not see drastic declines in revenue and that there is no growth in spending.

But, O’Brien said, the number could already be rising because of unexpected growth in Medicaid caseloads.

He said the deficit could also rise if property values remain sluggish because that would force the state to pay more as public-school attendance grows.

Another factor that could increase the deficit is if lawmakers decide to use general revenue to pay for some services that were funded with one-time stimulus dollars.

He said those are just some of the scenarios that could lead to the higher $15 billion deficit estimate.

Last year, lawmakers balanced an $87 billion general revenue budget despite receiving only $75 billion in revenues.

Back then the state was able to use $6.4 billion in federal stimulus money and about $5.7 billion leftover from the previous biennium.

O’Brien said that revenue would not be available this time around.

Officials with the state Department of Health and Human Services are already reporting that the agency is short about $1.6 billion in its 2010-11 budget, mostly because of a higher than expected number of applicants for Medicaid assistance.

State Rep. Norma Chávez, D-El Paso, said she expects to tap into the $8.2 billion rainy-day fund to plug some holes. But she is not sure how much of the fund Republican legislators will support using.

She said she is worried that if the Legislature does not tap into the rainy-day fund, it could mean a potential loss of jobs in the city and cuts to higher education.

“We are going into a tough budget deficit, and we will be playing defense for El Paso,” Chávez said.

State agencies have submitted about $1.7 billion in cutback proposals under the direction of Republican Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio.

Some of those cuts, agency officials said, could hurt funding for mental health programs and keep about 11,500 low-income students from receiving help from state financial aid programs.

Zahira Torres may be reached at ztorres@elpasotimes.com.