Amid a still-shaky economy, a troubling reality is starting to set in for states and school districts: The budget situation may get a lot worse when the federal economic-stimulus spigot runs dry. The hope of the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress has been that the $787 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act--including some $100 billion for education--would soften the pain of the recession and help drive a recovery. But as helpful as many state and local officials have found the one-time stimulus aid in coping with current and anticipated revenue shortfalls, it creates some awfully big holes to fill when the money begins to run out late next year in what's widely known as the "funding cliff." Experts also caution that the recovery of state and local coffers is likely to significantly lag behind any progress in the national economy generally. For one thing, state budgets are largely supported by individual income and sales taxes, which will likely be slower to catch up.