California Financial Report for September

The State Controller’s office has released the September cash report for the State’s General Fund. Three months into the fiscal year (2015-2016), total receipts were up by 7.7% to $23.8 billion compared with the same period last year. Total disbursements ($32.2 billion) were down by 14.1% over the same period, but still exceeded cash receipts by $8.3 billion. As of September 30, the state’s cash balance stood at -$5.8 billion.

Total revenues (receipts from taxes, licenses, fees or investment earnings) were up by 6.5% to $22.2 billion compared with the first three months of the previous fiscal year. So far this year, total revenues are running slightly ahead of expectations, but two of the state’s top three revenue sources failed to match projections.

• Personal income taxes increased by 8.9% to $15.3 billion, beating expectations by $606.2 million or 4.1%
• Corporate income taxes plunged by 17.6% to $1.3 million, missing the budget forecast by 7.3%
• Revenues from sales and use taxes were up by 7.4% to $5.6 billion, but fell short of expectations by 6.3%

The schedule of cash disbursements in the Controller’s report showed that expenditures on Local K-12 Education were $9.5 billion during the first three months of the fiscal year, a decline of 29.9% compared with the same period last year. Expenditures for Community Colleges dropped by 4.9% to $1.6 billion. The UC and CSU Systems have fared better this year – disbursements were up by 13.2% from the year ago level. Contributions to CalSTRS (the state teacher’s pension fund) increased by 47.0% to $332.1 million.

Spending for the Department of Corrections was little changed from last year, edging up by 1.3% to $2.5 billion Meanwhile, the amount California spent on health and human services plummeted by 40.5% to $715.5 million compared with $1.2 billion during the same three month period last year. The amount the state has paid to service its debt obligation so far this year was up marginally, rising by 1.4% to $862.2 million.

As of September 30, the General Fund had $32.7 billion in unused borrowable resources against $5.8 billion in outstanding loans, which are composed entirely of internal borrowing and is current to this year – no outstanding loans were carried over from the previous fiscal year.  

Sources:  http://www.sco.ca.gov/eo_pressrel.html