State legislators trudge back to Hartford for the 2016 session on Wednesday to face yet more discouraging fiscal news. In a one-day special session in December, lawmakers passed a $350 million plan to close a budget shortfall in the $20 billion state budget that runs through June 30.

Just a few weeks later, the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis is reporting the fix did not hold, the boat is still leaking, as it projects a $72.2 million deficit. Granted, that is a tiny number relative to the overall budget and certainly subject to change. Unfortunately, it is hard to see the revenue picture improving.

The stock market has been tanking of late and that is never good news for Connecticut because its income tax revenues, due to the concentration of investors living in Fairfield County, are more closely tied to the markets than in most other states.

Then there is the $507 million shortfall projected for 2016-2017, the second year of the two-year budget cycle approved by the legislature in the 2015 session. Big adjustments will be necessary to bring it back into balance. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will deliver his ideas for doing so next week.

“The governor is not proposing tax increases, nor will he support them,” his spokesman, Devon Puglia, told reports this week.

The pledge has to be greeted with skepticism, given the governor ignored a similar pledge made during his 2014 re-election campaign. But history is on the side of holding the line on taxes. While Gov. Malloy is only two years into this four-year term, state senators and House members will be facing re-election in November and have traditionally avoided tax hikes in election years.

What voters should perhaps be more concerned about are budgetary gimmicks and/or a raiding of the Rainy Day Fund, which is a less-than-healthy $406 million. Such moves would only make future budget outlooks direr.

And what is the OFA’s forecast for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, a budget that will be set by the legislature after the next election? It predicts a $1.7 billion deficit will confront the governor and lawmakers. Minor repairs around the edges won’t do the job.