Arkansas ended the 2015 fiscal year with a $191.6 million surplus, finishing 3.8 percent above budgeted revenue, Department of Finance and Administration officials announced Thursday.
General revenue collections for the year totaled $5.25 billion, up 4.5 percent from about $5 billion in fiscal year 2014, according to a revenue summary by state Finance Director Larry Walther and Deputy Director Tim Leathers.
"The fiscal year ended above forecast and above the budgeted amount as a result of improving growth in gross revenue (collections) and lower-than-expected payouts from income tax refunds and other deductions," Walther and Leathers wrote in the summary.
The surplus was also affected by one-time collections of $14.4 million from a deposit from the attorney general's office and $51.1 million from the Arkansas Insurance Department, finance officials said.
Sales-tax collections were up $24.6 million, to $2.197 billion, about 1.1 percent over last year's collections of $2.173 billion. Individual and corporate income tax collections were $83.5 million above forecast. Tobacco tax collections were below last year's collections of $219 million at $218 million and "fractionally" above the predicted amount, according to the department.
Walther and Leathers reported that the dedicated soft drink tax for the Medicaid Program Trust Fund totaled $41.9 million, down $2 million from last year's collection of $43.9 million. The educational adequacy fund received $34.9 million. Those funds come from additional revenue from different sales and use tax increases instituted in 2004.
Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.