The day after he won a landslide re-election victory for a second term, Gov. Robert Bentley was given an extensive briefing on the money-troubled general fund.

That is the pot of dollars which pay for prisons, Medicaid, public safety and most state needs not related to public schools.

For months Bentley had been saying the expected deficit in the general fund would be between $230 million and $250 million give or take. But Bentley also knew that was a moving target that would increase as state agencies began reporting what their money needs would be for the new budget year set to begin Oct. 1, 2015.

"I thought it would be above $250 million," the governor said in an interview following a speech at The Club before the Birmingham Business Alliance. "And it was. It's about $265 million now," added Bentley.

Not great news but not unexpected news. But that was not the last figure Bentley got in that briefing.

This one was:

$700 million dollars.

That figure is the estimated real deficit which the general fund is actually facing long term. That means over the next few years, said Bentley.

Bentley said years of the state failing to confront problems in how the general fund is funded and years of underfunding critical state needs and being forced to take money from one state pot to help plug holes in another are all coming home to roost.

Bentley offered a few examples.

Years of growing numbers of Alabamians using Medicaid services. Medicaid is expected to need $100 million to $115 million to just begin to cover cost in the general fund. Prisons will need $40 million more. Borrowed dollars -- $160 million -- from the state's Rainy Day Fund in 2010 needs to be paid back. The state owes $72 million to the federal government from a 2007 overpayment the feds made to Medicaid based on a faulty state calculation. Another $53 million owed to the feds from another federal program that overpaid based on a state error.

"...Those numbers begin to really ad up," Bentley said. "We go from $265 million to about $400 million in needs just looking at those figures."

But that's not the end of it.

The total deficit includes another $63 million in gasoline tax dollars taken away for highway maintence and given to public safety and courts. Bentley said that money needs to be repaid and used for highways.

Then there is another $187 million that had been taken out of the state education budget that needs to be repaid out of the general fund. The trouble, Bentley said, is that the money was taken from education to shore up the sagging general fund in the first place.

"...That money really ought to go back into education," Bentley said.

"When you take all that...it's around $700 million," said Bentley.

Bentley said there are no fixes yet decided on just to plug the must-fix $265 million hole yet alone the longer-term $700 million hole the general fund is facing.

"Whether or not we can find that amount to do all the things we say we need to do, I don't know," said Bentley.

Bentley said he and the Legislature will continue to work to make government more efficient by looking at ways to save money.

But Bentley warned that the state will not be able to solve the general fund problem by cutting its way to a balanced budget.

"We don't have enough money to cover what we owe," said Bentley. "I am working very closely with the leadership in the Leg because let me tell you, I am the one who will have to be out in front on this issue to try to solve it. People will be listening to me and what we say, but we have to have the Legislature. They are the ones who have to pass it."

"But there is coming a time we can't postpone any longer," said Bentley.

"We have to come up with a solution that solves this once and forever. There is going to come a time you can't postpone this anymore."

Bentley said he and the Legislature must begin to look at ways to try coming up with long term solutions. And might that include tax increases?

"Taxes would be the last thing I would look to as far as raising a new tax. But I cannot see getting through this without having to raise more revenue," said Bentley.