The September revenue collections are in, and as I told the Harrisburg Patriot-News this week, Pennsylvania is on track to meet revenue projections for the year, despite missing official estimates for the first quarter of 2011-12.
How’s that? Well, first of all, revenue collections so far this fiscal year are running ahead of the same three-month time period last year, reflecting a stubbornly slow but continued economic recovery. Tax revenue grew by 3.7% during the quarter, which is slightly ahead of estimated growth of 3.3% for the fiscal year.
While actual tax collections are below official estimates, some of that underperformance may be attributed to a change in the way those revenue estimates were made. The 2011-12 estimates predict a larger share of annual revenue coming in during the first half of the fiscal year than revenue estimates of the past several years. If 2011-12 collection patterns follow a similar course as most recent years, this change may make budget “shortfalls” more common in the first half of the fiscal year, followed by surpluses in the second half.
I first wrote about this last week after looking at July and August revenues. Looking at the full first quarter revenue figures, the analysis holds up.
The September revenue collections are in, and as I told the Harrisburg Patriot-News this week, Pennsylvania is on track to meet revenue projections for the year, despite missing official estimates for the first quarter of 2011-12.
How’s that? Well, first of all, revenue collections so far this fiscal year are running ahead of the same three-month time period last year, reflecting a stubbornly slow but continued economic recovery. Tax revenue grew by 3.7% during the quarter, which is slightly ahead of estimated growth of 3.3% for the fiscal year.
While actual tax collections are below official estimates, some of that underperformance may be attributed to a change in the way those revenue estimates were made. The 2011-12 estimates predict a larger share of annual revenue coming in during the first half of the fiscal year than revenue estimates of the past several years. If 2011-12 collection patterns follow a similar course as most recent years, this change may make budget “shortfalls” more common in the first half of the fiscal year, followed by surpluses in the second half.
I first wrote about this last week after looking at July and August revenues. Looking at the full first quarter revenue figures, the analysis holds up.