BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — It’s not the eye-popping largesse of recent years, but Louisiana is expected to have a $47 million surplus leftover when last year’s financial books are closed.
State budget director Ray Stockstill said the figure was preliminary and likely to change before it is certified later this year.
Stockstill said the extra money was largely because state agencies spent less than their total budgets for the 2008-09 budget year that ended June 30. Other savings came from the state refinancing bond debt.
Lawmakers can’t spend the money until it is officially declared surplus, likely to happen early next year. Then, the state Constitution restricts how it can be used. A slice must be deposited in the state’s “rainy day” fund, and the rest must be used on “one-time” items, like debt payments, road construction or coastal restoration projects.
The news follows three consecutive years of record surpluses, as a surge of post-hurricane economic activity combined with an influx of federal recovery dollars and sky-high energy prices to give the state government more money than it could spend.
Last year, lawmakers had $866 million left over from the 2007-08 fiscal year, and the previous year the surplus was $1.1 billion. Even in the 2005-06 fiscal year, when Hurricane Katrina devastated much of south Louisiana’s economy, the state managed to generate an $827 million surplus.
 
 
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