By Mary Jo Pitzl, The Republic | azcentral.com
Arizona is closing out its budget books with a $266 million surplus — a nearly $400 million turnaround from the hole the state thought it would be in at this point.
Lawmakers built the current-year budget on the belief that they’d have to first work their way out of a $132 million deficit. But higher-than-expected collections from the income tax, primarily from capital gains on investments, have resulted in a $266 million surplus, according to a report released Monday by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.
Add to that the $460 million in the state’s rainy-day fund, and that amounts to nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars that’s essentially sitting in the bank.
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