Higher income tax collections combined with concessions by state employees and a deficit-mitigation plan enacted by the General Assembly have cut the projected 2009 budget deficit to $914 million, State Comptroller Nancy Wyman said today.
It is the first time since February that the estimated deficit dipped below $1 billion.
“While it is encouraging that the deficit is moving in the right direction, there is much work to be done to put Connecticut back on the road to fiscal stability,” Wyman said.
Income tax receipts rose 1 percent in April, after declining an average of 8 percent in the first three months of the calendar year. The increase came despite the loss of nearly 12,000 jobs in April, bringing total job losses for the fiscal year to 65,000.
Wyman said the income tax improvement in April may be at least partly due to a quirk in the timing of some income tax payments when comparing this fiscal year to last.
