CHARLESTON, W.Va. — May was a rare month, of late, where West Virginia revenue collection exceeded estimates — but the positive figures were “very deceiving,” fueled primarily through funding transfers, supplemental appropriations and an early transfer of state lottery profits, Revenue Secretary Bob Kiss said Tuesday.
“If you back those numbers out, we would have not met our revenue estimates,” Kiss said of the $314.7 million in taxes collected in May.
That amount exceeded estimates by $27.98 million, or nearly 10 percent, but that included $26.7 million in what Kiss called “gap-fill” funding transfers and a lottery transfer of $20.7 million that includes $10.2 million in lottery profits that were expected to be transferred this month.
Year-to-date, lottery transfers are $18.8 million ahead of projections, but as Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow noted, “All that means is, for June, we will be $18.8 million short.”