AUGUSTA (AP) – Maine’s general fund shortfall for the present fiscal year will be $140 million, close to the worst expectations of state revenue experts, officials said Friday as new unemployment figures reflected the worsening national economic plight facing Maine and other states.

The state pension system is also being affected by the world and national financial tailspin.

The Maine Public Employees Retirement System’s board chairman, Peter Leslie, told the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee on Thursday that declines on Wall Street have caused a nearly $3 billion loss in the system, whose members include 90,000 past and present state and municipal employees, including teachers.

The pension system’s assets have dropped from $10.5 billion in July to $7.6 billion now.

“It puts it pretty much in the same boat as public retirement systems all around the country,” Leslie told the committee.

But the pension system’s executive director said there’s no need for immediate worry. Gail Drake Wright said there’s more than enough money in the system to pay benefits to retirees well into the future.

The state Revenue Forecasting Committee accepted the recommendation of Maine Revenue Services officials that the general fund will run short by $140 million through June. In addition, the local government fund that goes to municipal revenue sharing will run a $6.4 million deficit, bringing the total to $146.4 million.

State economists earlier had estimated a shortfall for fiscal 2009, which ends June 30, to be between $110 million and $150 million. A further refinement of the estimate was presented Friday to the Revenue Forecasting Committee, a panel of state and academic tax and economic experts, which accepted the figure.

Earlier estimates of a shortfall prompted Gov. John Baldacci to order $80 million in state spending curtailments on Wednesday. The governor plans to submit a budget revision package to the newly elected Legislature in December that will account for the remaining shortfall. So far, the hardest hit departments are Education and Health and Human Services.

Going into the next biennium starting July 1, preliminary estimates of shortfall are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The current two-year general fund budget totals $6.3 billion.

Meanwhile, Maine’s unemployment rate rose by 0.1 percentage point to 5.7 percent in October, 0.8 of a point higher than the state’s rate in October of last year, Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman said Friday. Maine has lost 4,000 wage and salary jobs over the past year, she said.

“Maine labor market conditions continued to weaken in October as a result of the slowing national economy,” Fortman said. “Maine businesses and workers have been affected by both layoffs and reduced seasonal hiring.”

However, Maine’s 5.7 percent rate for last month compares favorably with the national rate for October, which was 6.5 percent, the Labor Department said.

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