Latest State Cash Statement

There will be headlines about the latest cash statement - July 2011-January 2012 - issued by the state controller. Somewhat less revenue came in than forecast in the governor's January budget proposal (which contains estimates for 2011-12 as well as a proposal for 2012-13). But expenditures were a bit less than forecast, too, although some of that reduction was due to delayed payments by the controller.  Nonetheless, it is still quite possible that the current fiscal year's budget will be in rough balance, using common English parlance (inflow = outflow).  The issue remains of financing the past negative balance in the general fund that developed at the height of the Great Recession.

So before panicking over headlines, let's see how the budget goes over the next few months.

The controller's report is at:
http://sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD/CASH/fy1112_jan.pdf