Underfunding raises surplus importance
News that year-ending balances will show black is always welcomed, and it’s even better in a state like Mississippi, whose budget fortunes have been less than fully healthy since the recession and other woes started in late 2007.
House Appropriations Chair Herb Frierson, R-Poplarville, told Daily Journal capital correspondent Bobby Harrison last week that Mississippi can expect a “substantial surplus” when books close on fiscal year 2013 on June 30, but exact results won’t be known until sometime in July.
Frierson suggested but did not state flatly that $300 million might be in range.
Collections through May are $228.1 million, or 5.5 percent, above the estimate – not counting an additional $35 million from the settlement of lawsuits by Attorney General Jim Hood.
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal
6/18/13
Magnolia Tribune
