The state ended the year with a surplus of $483 million – which represents the amount the difference between the amount the state received from taxes and other revenue and what it spent for government services, salaries and other expenses.

Gov. Mike Pence announces that the state finished the 2013 fiscal year with 1.94 billion dollars in the bank. Photo by Savvy Raines, TheStatehouseFile.com

The surplus was $93 million more than anticipated.

“Revenues are coming in higher than projected, reserves are higher than projected and our bottom line is stronger than projected,” Pence said.

The state’s reserves of just under $2 billion are $86 million more than lawmakers expected when they wrote the last two-year budget, which ended on June 30. That was just under the amount needed to trigger tax refunds like those Hoosiers received last year.

“We made a decision to use resources remaining at the agency level to pay down debt of $66 million,” Pence said.  “Our total reversion for Fiscal Year 13 is $184 million. That takes us right up to the cap, and so that doesn’t trigger the implementation of the rules under” the automatic taxpayer refund.

In FY 2013, Indiana’s total revenue growth was $337 million than the actual revenue collected in FY2012 and was $92 million more than predicted in the budget.

“The balance sheet of Indiana is strong and growing stronger,” Pence said. “Our state remains the fiscal envy of the nation.”

But despite Pence’s optimism, state Democrats say a surplus isn’t enough to help Hoosier families.

“The fact is that these numbers only matter to the extent that our people are prospering,” House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, said in a statement.  “In that context, these numbers mean nothing.”

Pelath said state unemployment levels are still too high and education funding levels are still too low. He also said the surplus was created at the expense of providing services to Indiana families.

Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, also said he believes the budget needs to focus more on jobs and education.

“By emphasizing prudent investment in job skills training, in a robust statewide early education program, addressing backlogged local infrastructure programs and finding ways to curb the cost of attending college, we can take those needed first steps,” Lanane said.

Pence said the state paid off $282 million in debt in FY2013, which reduced tax-funded debt by 52 percent from the start of the year. Additionally, $66 million in in bonds will be paid off for the Miami Correctional Facility, which Pence said will lower state spending over the next two years by $27 million.

“Once again, Indiana continues to be a model of fiscal responsibility,” State Auditor Tim Berry said in a statement. “Our discipline when it comes to the state’s financial management allows us to meet our budgetary goals as well as position our state for a solid financial future. That is something most states today would envy.”

Pence said the state’s fiscal position is a “lead selling point” to businesses around the country and around the world.

Article writer Olivia Covington is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.