This afternoon the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council issued its monthly Economic and Revenue Update. Here are the key bullets on revenue from the summary:

• Major General Fund-State revenue collections for the July 11 – August 10, 2014 collection period were $62.4 million (5.1%) higher than the June forecast. $55.4 million of the collection surplus came from Revenue Act taxes.
• Cumulatively, collections are now $89.3 million (3.5%) higher than forecasted.

This is the second positive collections report since the ERFC’s June 17 meeting, at which it added $156.6 million to its forecast of 2013-15 general fund-state revenue and $238.3 million to its forecast of 2015-17 revenues. With $89.3 cumulative positive variance, it looks likely that the ERFC will make further upward revisions to the forecasts when it meets on September 16th. The Update, however, cautions that “due to the inherent volatility of month-to-month collections, it is likely that this month’s large collection variance … is the result of a temporary fluctuation rather than a sign of continued stronger growth.”

There will be one more collections report (covering the August 11 – September 10 period) before the September 16 ERFC meeting.