Tax and Revenue Committee members heard a new economic and tax revenue report Wednesday that shows Utah state government is truly "in the money."

Legislators had an extra $1 billion to spend during the 2006 Legislature. They spent most of it, putting aside $160 million for tax relief.

But just a few months later, the state is running an additional revenue surplus of $200 million to $300 million.

With only one month of tax collections to go in the fiscal year, revenues in the General and Uniform School funds are growing by 17.1 percent — when growth was originally estimated to be only 9.4 percent, Phillip Dean of Legislative Research and General Counsel said.

Utah created 51,000 new jobs over the past year, on par with the huge economic growth years of the mid-1990s. Sales tax revenue is up 15 percent. Corporate income tax collections are up nearly 38 percent, Dean said.

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Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche

E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com