On February 1, 2009, the Washington State Journal reported that the governor of Wisconsin claimed that he had a surplus for the year ending in June 2008 of $130.7 million. However, according to Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, Wisconsin had a deficit of $2.5 billion. Since the state constitution requires Wisconsin to have a balanced budget, the governor needed to be able to make that announcement. How, then, could the state run a deficit?