Posted on 01/03/2008 1:43:22 PM PST by mombyprofession
Michigan has $350 million budget surplus
Posted: Jan 3, 2008 02:06 PM
Updated: Jan 3, 2008 02:06 PM
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Reduced spending and higher than expected tax receipts helped the state leap into the new year with a $350 million budget surplus.
Michigan ended its fiscal year Sept. 30 with $259.1 million. Annual state financial reports also listed the School Aid Fund with more than $94 million.
The surplus is for the 2006-07 fiscal year, a period in which a deficit of more than $1 billion was filled by delaying payments to state universities and community colleges, dipping into funds set aside for job training and substance abuse treatment and selling off part of the state's future tobacco settlement. Taxes were not raised to deal with the shortfall.
Budget officials and state legislative leaders will decide how the extra money will be used. The Senate Fiscal Agency has predicted a deficit of $34 million for the state general fund next fiscal year, while others have warned of a larger shortfall, the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday.
Officials are to meet Jan. 11 to update Michigan's budget forecasts for the current fiscal year and the one that starts Oct. 1.
The surplus is not part of this year's budget agreement, under which taxes were raised by $1.35 billion and spending was cut or restricted by more than $400 million to help wipe out a $1.75 billion state budget deficit and place the state on sounder financial footing.
"The fact that we've closed the books with a surplus is more advantageous than finding out we're in the hole again," Matt Marsden, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, told The Detroit News.
I was in Oregon last month and they were all waiting for their tax refund due to a budget surplus. Oregon law.
If they moved south to Ohio they're likely to be disappointed.
They would be disappointed in IL too. Become a Hoosier, we bounce tax binging Mayors in the Capitol City when they get too comfy.
Toyota and Honda are building factories/cars here now too. We just landed NicePak Manufacturing (producer of "generic" store brands from the East Coast. Oh and Medco landed in IN for pharma distribution from the East Coast. All these large employers investigated the surrounding Midwestern States. Indiana won out. I wonder why?
The government’s solution is to spend the money quick.
They have a surplus because they are moving, especially, to Florida. Last Michiganer to leave, please turn the lights off!
Like the Fed.gov, they probably just moved a lot of expenditures OFF the budget. Still SPENT it...it just is no longer included in the budget, so they can claim a “surplus”.
They will need it to pay for the gold digging coaches that the got from WVU!
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
Budget officials and state legislative leaders will decide how the extra money will be used.
I hate wanting to vomit so early in the morning.
What you said. We could use a boost here.
Michigan has a budget surplus in the same way that a fat man has a big stomach surplus he could live off.
But more likely than not, the fat man will continue taking and consuming food rather than living off his stomach surplus.
She’s just “blowing us away” as promised. Michigan is becoming a shining example of liberalism but they will never Get It.
You have his name wrong, it’s Tim Screw-big! My wife worked with him at WKAR.
It’s the cheap Amish slave labor here!
Very well said.
Reduced spending and higher than expected tax receipts...neither of which will last -- although Lansing will act like it is going to, unless we dump every last one of the bastards, starting with the monster Jenny Grandstand.
"I hate Michigan so early in the morning."
"Happiness is seeing Michigan and/or Denver in the rear-view mirror." They're equivalent.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.