News
Release
For immediate
release
Indiana ends
fiscal year with reserves in excess of $2 billion
INDIANAPOLIS
(July 3, 2012) -- Governor Mitch
Daniels said today that a preliminary look at fiscal data shows Indiana
will close the 2012 Fiscal Year with reserves of more than $2 billion and a
structural surplus, meaning annual revenue in excess of annual expenses, of more
than $500 million.
“Thanks to this amount there will be a major
infusion of money into Indiana’s pension funds, which are already the strongest
in the country, and the first automatic taxpayer refund in state history,”
Daniels said. “This was a fundamental assignment of our administration; turn
over to our successors the strongest possible position and therefore the widest
range of choices for Indiana. We wish them well with whatever choices they
decide are right for Indiana’s future.”
With reserves
totaling at least 14 percent of the state’s budget, most Hoosier taxpayers will
receive their first automatic taxpayer refund when they file their state taxes
in 2013. The Indiana General
Assembly approved the governor’s plan for an automatic taxpayer refund in
2011. The refund will clearly be in excess of $100 for a single filer or $200
for a joint return. The exact amount will not be ascertained until the fall when
the estimate will be made of how many tax returns will qualify. The median
income tax payment was a little over $800 last year, so the refund will amount
to more than 10 percent for the typical Hoosier.
Because the state’s reserves exceed 10 percent
of the upcoming year’s budget, half of the excess will be returned to taxpayers
and the other half will go to further strengthen several of the state’s pension
funds. That means the pension funds, already rated among the nation’s most
secure, will receive at least $300 million.
For Fiscal Year 2013, the state is projecting a structural surplus of more than $400 million, resulting in the state’s reserves again exceeding $2 billion.
Indiana fiscal facts
during the Daniels administration:
· Indiana has its first Triple-A credit rating
· Indiana's expenditures have grown at less than one-quarter
of the rate of the previous decade
· Indiana has the fewest state employees per capita in the
country
· Indiana has paid down previous debt 43 percent
o Indiana repaid more than $750 million of debt previously
owed to schools, universities and local governments
o Indiana repaid a $63 million loan to the Motor Vehicle
Highway Fund that originated in the 1990s
o Indiana paid off the 50 year old bonds on the Indiana Toll Road, almost $200
million worth.
· Indiana has the lowest burden per household to fully fund
public pensions in the country
o Indiana has the smallest unfunded liability per capita for
retiree health care of any state
o At 6.75 percent, Indiana's pensions have the most
conservative investment return assumptions of any state and is the only state
below 7 percent
· Indiana’s combined pension and long-term debt liability as
a percentage of GDP is the 2nd lowest in the country
Audio from today’s media availability may be
accessed here:
