In spite of tax collections coming in short for nearly all of the fiscal year that just ended, the state says it ended the year with a surplus.
Budget Director Tim Keen had predicted several times a positive ending balance for the fiscal year. And the state finished with what he wanted, a small cushion of just under $171 million. Keen says even though tax collections were nearly a billion dollars below estimates, a carryover balance from the start of the year helped.
“About $460 million that we were able to use, along with our under spending in a variety of places to be able to finish the year in the black.”
Keen says Medicaid led that under-spending, but he and other Kasich administration officials have been warning that lawmakers’ actions on the new budget have left that program with too little money for the next two years.
