Mississippi Ends Year With Surplus (Jackson: budget, estimated, office)

[Listener2307]

JACKSON – The state ended the fiscal year Thursday with an estimated $62 million more in revenue than was budgeted.

The surplus will bode well for the 2012 Legislature when it meets in January to develop a new state budget.

“While this is welcome news, we will continue to face great budget challenges in the new fiscal year” which starts today, said Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, whose office announced the surplus Thursday afternoon.

According to Bryant’s office, for the month of June, the state collected $581 million in revenue, or 4.2 percent, above the projection. For the entire fiscal year, the state collected 2.2 percent more revenue than it did the previous year – or $4.6 billion.[LEFT]
Read more: NEMS360.com - State ends year with a surplus
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By law, our state must have a balanced budget. That piece of good common sense legislation works well even if sometimes it is difficult to implement. Having money left over at the end of the year gives us a great head start for 2012.

[mccarley]

And there was that other headline.

"State shutdown -- thousands of Minnesotans will lose their jobs"

[Nivalis]

I agree about the balanced budget. The US would be in such a better state if there was a constitutional amendment requiring this on the federal level.