State tax collections rebounded in April as many Georgians paid their income taxes, and retail sales that are taxed picked up.
Total collections were up 9.1 percent from April 2016. For the fiscal year, which ends June 30, tax collections are up 4.1 percent, or $718 million.
Personal and corporate income tax collections improved in April, and the sales tax take was up 3.6 percent from April 2016.
Tax collections have been relatively sluggish in recent months, in part because of a falling corporate income tax take and slow sales.
The state needs a 3 percent rate of growth to pay for this year’s $24 billion budget, so the numbers so far make it likely it will wind up the fiscal year with another healthy surplus.
That's a goal of Gov. Nathan Deal, who vowed to leave his successor at least a $2 billion rainy day reserve when he leaves office in 2019. He met that last summer, and the governor has now reset his goal to $2.5 billion. That amounts to about what it would take to run the state for almost a month.
Big reserves also are important in helping the state keep its AAA bond rating, which allows the government to borrow money at low interest rates. That saves the state millions of dollars a year in interest payments.
The good bond rating is particularly important because the state has been on a spree of road-building and other construction projects. The upcoming year's budget that Deal signed on Monday includes more than $1.1 billion in borrowing for construction projects, including $105 million for a new state courts building near the Capitol and more than $70 million to finish a new technical college campus in the governor's home county.
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