PRESS RELEASE FROM STATE
COMPTROLLER’S OFFICE
WYMAN SAYS STATE WILL END
FISCAL YEAR WITH $900,000 SURPLUS
June 1, 2004
State Comptroller Nancy Wyman today projected that
$900,000 of surplus tax revenue will remain at the end of the fiscal year June
30, following recent appropriations of about $238 million from the original
surplus.
The surplus had reached an estimated $239 million before
the General Assembly implemented Public Act 04-216, which provided for $112.4
million in additional spending in fiscal 2004 and transferred another $125.3
million to the General Fund for fiscal 2005.
The remaining $900,000 surplus will be deposited into the
state's emergency Rainy Day Fund. Wyman said she was disappointed that a larger
portion of the surplus was not dedicated to the fund, which was drained of its
$590 million balance to deal with a deficit two years ago.
"Rebuilding the Rainy Day Fund during the current
economic upturn should be a major priority for state government," Wyman
said. "There is no better insurance to guard against repeating the fiscal
nightmare the state went through over the past two years."
Most of the surplus is tied to a slowly improving
national and state economy, Wyman said, especially capital gains and dividend
tax payments related to growth in the financial markets. Those factors also
resulted in the payment of about $50 million less in state tax refunds by the
Department of Revenue Services than was anticipated.
Wyman said there also are signs that the state job market
are strengthening. After months of decline, about 4,000 jobs were gained in
April and the unemployment rate dropped from 4.9 percent to 4.5 percent. The
employment spike means Connecticut has gained a net of about 500 jobs during
the 2004 fiscal year.
Wyman cautioned, however, that the state's corporate
sector remains flat. Payments of taxes on corporate profits are expected to end
the year about $113 million below original estimates.