Outgoing Governor Dannel Malloy’s administration has projected that Connecticut will end its fiscal year next June with a $137 million budget surplus.
This is contained in a letter from Malloy’s budget director, Ben Barnes, to state Comptroller Kevin Lembo. Barnes says strong state revenue collections are responsible for the projected surplus. He says revenues are about $163 million higher than had been expected.
Leading the surge is personal income tax returns, which are up $97 million. Sales tax revenue is up $58 million and other revenue is up $7.7 million so far. Barnes says because of this, the state will probably end fiscal year 2019 with $1.6 billion in its budget reserve fund. This is the Malloy administration’s first monthly projection of the state’s budget outlook since the fiscal year began on July 1.
