Despite COVID’s economic impact, SC saw a $1 billion budget surplus last year
Despite predicted budgeting struggles caused by COVID-19, the South Carolina state government spent much less money than it had in its coffers last year, ending the year on a surplus, according to a statement from the S.C. Comptroller’s Office.
After the last fiscal year, which stretched from July 2020 to June 2021, the state came out with a $1.024 billion general fund surplus.
During that year, general fund spending decreased by 2.7%, or about $235 million, from the previous year. Meanwhile, revenues topped the previous fiscal year’s by 13.9% or $1.280 billion, according to the Comptroller’s office.
About $539 million of the state’s revenue came from an increase sales and use tax receipts, a $384 million increase in individual income tax receipts and a $248 million increase in corporate income tax receipts.
The comptroller’s statement said revenue collections were “dramatically higher than revenue projections that were used at the beginning of the year.” Before the pandemic, lawmakers were expecting to have $2 billion more to spend during the upcoming fiscal year, but COVID-19 caused them to lower their expectations dramatically. As a result, lawmakers built the state’s spending plan much more conservatively than they otherwise would have.
“FY2021 was unique in the history of state government,” the Comptroller’s Office said. “It was certainly unique because of the great uncertainty created by COVID-19. Yet it was also unique because the year produced such enormous levels of surplus revenue, which resulted from the state’s actual revenue collections far exceeding the revenue projections used for the FY2021 budget.”
Lawmakers chose to keep state spending levels the same amid the COVID-19 pandemic as they had been during the previous fiscal year. That meant state agencies were to operate on about the same amount of money as they had during the previous 12 months.
Lawmakers also had plenty of federal funds to use to help state agencies respond to COVID-19 thanks to a number of spending bills passed by Congress.
This isn’t the first fiscal year affected by COVID-19 that South Carolina has seen a budget surplus. Last year, the state saw a $800 million surplus, despite the lockdowns caused by the early days of the pandemic.
