Virginia posts over $500 million surplus in 2011

Despite the current economic downturn, Virginia has once finds itself with a financial surplus. How did the state earn such a hefty sum, and how will the money be appropriated?

August 18, 2011; 10:04 AM • by RVANews staff

Virginia will have a $544.8 Million Surplus for Fiscal Year 2011. Gov. McDonnell announced the news this morning to during his annual summer address to the Joint Money Committees of the General Assembly.

“I am pleased to report today that, through bipartisan cooperation, we have ended the 2011 Fiscal Year with a surplus of over half a billion dollars,” said the Governor in a press release. “This is the second year in a row that we have posted a budget surplus. We have done this by budgeting conservatively, keeping taxes low, reforming how state government works, and investing wisely in core functions of government crucial to private sector job creation and economic development.”

$310.7 million of the funds resulted from unanticipated revenue gains, along with $234.1 million in various state cost-saving measures. A portion of the surplus will be put into the state’s piggy bank.

“In uncertain times we must prudently prepare for the future,” said the Governor. “We will deposit another $132.7 million into the state’s Rainy Day Fund. And we will ask the General Assembly to create a ‘Federal Action Contingency Trust’ Fund that will help increase our ability to handle the impact of likely future federal reductions.”

Below is the planned allocation of the entire 2011 surplus funds:

• Revenue Stabilization Fund: $132.7 million

• ‘Federal Action Contingency Trust’ Fund (FACT Fund): $30 million

• Virginia Water Quality Improvement Fund: $50.3 million

• Accelerated Sales Tax to Transportation Trust Fund: $26 million

• Natural Disaster Reserve: $17.3 million

• Capital Renovation (Treasury Loan Repayment): $13.1 million

• Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund Interest: $8.9 million

• Federal Portion of Electric Rate Refund: $1.4 million

• Miscellaneous Transactions: $2.9 million

• Transportation Trust Fund: $67.2 million

• BRAC Commitments: $7.5 million

• Sheriff Departments: $7.4 million

• VRS Payment and other: $18.7 million

• Planned Revisions in Budget: $13.4 million

• Reappropriated Non-General Fund/Higher Education Balances: $63.6 million

• Reappropriated General Fund Operation Balances: $84.4 million

 

 

1st Row: Gov. McDonnell

2nd Row: Deputy Chief of Staff Matt Conrad; First Lady Maureen McDonnell; Chief of Staff Martin Kent; Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton; Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security Terrie Suit; Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel; Secretary of Public Safety Marla Decker; Secretary of Technology Jim Duffey; Secretary of Administration Lisa Hicks-Thomas

photo courtesy of Michaele White

August 18, 2011 10:04 AM 4