For the first time since July of 2015, general revenue fund collections for March exceeded the state’s estimate, according to the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services. It was the first bit of good news in the past year since state revenues took hit after hit in the energy downturn.
Despite the positive bump in general revenue fund collections, gross production tax collections on oil and gas totaled only $6.7 million, meaning they were $11.4 million or 63.1 percent below the estimate. They were also $6.7 million or 49.9 percent below the prior year collections.
Natural gas collections totaled $6.1 million. The figure was $1.3 million or 26.6 percent above the estimate and $6.1 million above the prior year. However oil collections totaled only $596,498 which was $12.7 million or 95.5 percent below the estimate and 95.5 percent or $12.8 million below the previous year.
Preston Doerflinger, Secretary of Finance, Administration and Information Technology said the total March general revenue fund collections for March were $394.2 million or 0.8 percent above the official estimate, but 7.1 percent below the prior year collections.
“We were due a decent month after so many months of missing the estimate,” said Doerflinger. “No one should get too excited because we are by no means out of the woods, but this is certainly a welcome development.”
The total general revenue fund collections for the first nine months of the fiscal year were $3.7 billion but that’s still $323.8 million or 8 percent below the official estimate and also $386.6 million or 9.4 percent below the prior year collections.
