McDonnell, State ends fiscal 2011 with $545M surplus

Virginia will have a $544.8 Million Surplus for Fiscal Year 2011. Gov. McDonnell announced the news this morning to during his annual summer address to the Joint Money Committees of the General Assembly.


“I am pleased to report today that, through bipartisan cooperation, we have ended the 2011 Fiscal Year with a surplus of over half a billion dollars,” said the Governor in a press release. “This is the second year in a row that we have posted a budget surplus. We have done this by budgeting conservatively, keeping taxes low, reforming how state government works, and investing wisely in core functions of government crucial to private sector job creation and economic development.”


$310.7 million of the funds resulted from unanticipated revenue gains, along with $234.1 million in various state cost-saving measures. A portion of the surplus will be put into the state’s piggy bank.


Under Virginia law, much of the surplus money is already allocated. Roughly $132.7 million will go toward the state’s rainy day fund, raising the balance to $440.5 million in fiscal 2013, and $50.3 million will be set aside for the Water Quality Improvement fund for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.


The governor also wants to use $7.4 million for supplemental funding for sheriff’s offices and a portion of the money to pay back the Virginia Retirement System.


By law, two-thirds of the unappropriated surplus balance, or $67.2 million, will go to the Transportation trust fund.