JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Stuggling because of sluggish tax reveneus, Missouri government began the new year Thursday by eliminating 870 positions and cutting $67.1 million in planned spending.

Most of the axed positions, however, already are vacant. Just 96 employees are being laid off, according to figures from the state budget office.

The cuts comprise a relatively small portion of Missouri’s 65,000 person work force but affect almost all agencies funded by the $18.9 billion budget that runs through June 30.

Included in the cuts announced by budget director Linda Luebbering is the elimination of 550 already vacant positions in the state Department of Corrections, where prison guards have complained for some time about their long work hours caused by staffing shortages.

Another 88 positions are being eliminated in the state Department of Public Safety, including 48 resulting in layoffs. Another 86 positions are being eliminated from the Department of Mental Health, including 18 layoffs.

The Department of Health and Senior Services is losing 66 positions, including 23 layoffs.

The state’s largest agency, the Department of Social Services, is losing $11 million but no employee positions. The department oversees everything from the state’s welfare and foster care systems to the state’s Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.

The $67.1 million in cuts is on top of a traditional 3 percent budget withholding made annually so that the state has money in reserve. If that is included, the total amount of appropriations withheld so far by the state comes to $124.4 million.

The budget withholdings are the first this fiscal year, although Gov. Bob Holden made a series of similar cuts during the 2002 fiscal year.

Holden, who personally announced the previous cuts, was leaving it to Luebbering to release the specifics about Thursday’s cuts. But Holden spokesman Mary Still said the governor was signing off on all the spending reductions.

The cuts are necessary because state revenues continue to fall below projections. Missouri’s budget assumed 3.1 percent growth in general revenues compared to last year, when tax revenues fell for the first time since the 1955 fiscal year.

But through November, the state’s general revenues — consisting of such things as state income and sales taxes — were running $152 million short of what was budgeted.

Luebbering has said that shortfall could swell to more than $300 million by the end of the fiscal year.

Some budget cuts were announced before Thursday, including the Missouri National Guard’s closure of a boot camp for troubled youths. Forty-four employees of ShowMe Challenge program at Camp Clark in Nevada are to be laid off effective Jan. 15.

Eliminating the program will save about $1.1 million in state money but also means Missouri won’t receive about $1.7 million in federal money that had gone to the program.

Thursday’s budget cuts are unlikely to be the last for state agencies.

State economists, budget officials and lawmakers are nearing completion of their revenue projections for the 2004 fiscal year, which starts July 1.

Luebbering has said the state would need about $1 billion in new revenues just to keep pace with the current budget and meet rising expenses for such things as prisons and Medicaid. Part of the reason for the gap is that the current budget was balanced with several one-time revenue sources that would have to be replaced to continue current funding levels.