DES MOINES — Misery loves company, but company, says Holly Lyons, “doesn’t make you feel less miserable.”

There’s plenty of misery to go around among states facing fiscal challenges that, in many cases, are much worse than Iowa’s, according to Lyons, the director of the nonpartisan Legislative Service Agency’s fiscal bureau.

In Iowa, Gov. Chet Culver froze state hiring, limited travel and then made a 1.5 percent across-the-board budget cut to save an additional $90 million. His 2010 budget calls for a  6.5 percent cut — $480 million. The moves already have resulted in furloughs for some state employees. The news is likely to get worse in light of the Revenue Estimating Conference’s projection the state will collect $130 million less in the year ending June 30 and $270 million less than expected next year.

As bad as that sounds, it’s not as bad as it is in Michigan or Colorado or Utah or, well, a lot of states.

“Everybody’s in really bad shape, and we’re not quite as bad,” Culver’s Chief of Staff Charlie Krogmeier said.

Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Rhode Island are suffering most from the national economic crisis, according to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, but several states, including Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, are close behind.

For the first time since 2002, the total of all state tax revenues from all personal income, corporate income and sales declined, according to the Rockefeller institute. Overall state tax revenues fell by 5.6 percent when adjusted for inflation in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with the same quarter a year earlier. Weaker sales tax revenue accounted for most of the decline, the institute says. Corporate income tax saw the sharpest decline at 9.3 percent, followed by sales tax and personal income tax at 5.9 and 0.4 percent, respectively, the institute says.

It found that North Dakota is about the only state “doing well.” It saw sales tax collections grow 14.4 percent in the last quarter of 2008 as opposed to the declines 35 states experienced, the Rockefeller institute reported.

North Dakota, Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming were the only states to add jobs from October through December. Employment fell in the 45 others, the institute said.

In Michigan, Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm has proposed cutting $670 million, closed two prisons and issued an executive order to possibly parole 12,000 inmates who have served their minimum sentences. She’s also proposed a $59-per-pupil cut in state aid to K-12 schools and a $100 million cut in higher education funding.

California was unable to pay state employees, including teachers, for a time and was making taxpayers wait for their income tax refunds.

In California, the cuts to education were more than $8 billion, Rep. Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale, said.

“Not that you can compare our budget to California’s, but our general fund budget is just $5.8 billion,” the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee said.

It’s hard to compare any state to another, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, said.

Still, Dvorsky said, he often thought he would like to be on the appropriations committee in Alaska where the state collects oil revenues. This year, however, the 49th state is tapping its reserves to the tune of $1.2 billion — with a B — to balance the state budget.

As painful as the budget cuts facing Iowans are, Dvorsky and Raecker agree the situation is not as dire as what other states are going through. The rainy day funds the state has built and the law limiting spending to 99 percent of revenues has served the state well, Raecker said.

“It gives us options others don’t have,” he said.

Those reserves and a history of “pretty responsible budgeting no matter who’s in control” have prevented Iowa from sinking into the budgeting quagmire facing Michigan, for example, Dvorsky said.

Iowans’ innate neighborliness helps the state get through tough budget times, Krogmeier said.

“Compared to some states, in Iowa everybody in the system — local, county and state — knows each other,” he said. “If not a direct personal relationship, they at least know each other. People in Cedar Rapids know enough about Davenport, there is a sensitivity and a ‘we’re all in it together’ feeling” that helps leaders work through a bad situation.

The state and Iowans will not get through this budget unscathed, however, Dvorsky warned.

“There will be pain,” he said. “There will be furloughs and layoffs and programs reduced or eliminated.”

He tries to keep tabs on what other states are doing to deal with lower revenues, “but there’s never a silver bullet that solves all, or even a majority, of your problems,” Dvorsky said.

Some states are digging deep in their arsenals of budget cuts, program eliminations, layoffs and tax increases to find a silver bullet.

New York’s governor has proposed 119 new or increased user fees, Oregon may raise the death certificate fee, and Wisconsin has started taxing Internet downloads.

Several states are looking to turn personal vice into a virtue for state coffers. A dime-a-drink surcharge is on tap for Californians, and Kentucky plans to raise its alcohol tax. New Jersey will follow suit but give Joe Six-pack a break by excluding beer from the 25 percent increase in alcohol taxes.

Arkansas has increased its cigarette taxes by 56 cents a pack, and California’s tax is now nearly $3 a pack.

And in Nevada, in what might be considered the ultimate sin tax, lawmakers have proposed a $5 brothel tax.