Hours after legislators decamped from the capital, the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council’s monthly Economic and Revenue Update provided a bit of fiscal good news: Collections for the March 11 – April 10 period were $24.9 million above forecast. Collections for the preceding February 11 – March 10 period (reported on March 12) were $7.7 million below forecast, thus the cumulative variance since the February forecast is $17.2 million.

EFRC staff remains worried about the situation in Europe:

The massive increase in liquidity provided to European banks by the European Central Bank has reduced the risk of a Eurozone financial crisis for now. However, we continue to be concerned about the downside risks in our baseline forecast. Although world financial markets did not react strongly to Greece’s recent default, larger European economies such as Spain and Italy have substantial budget deficits and weak economies and it is too soon to declare the Eurozone crisis as being resolved.

In February EFRC staff estimated that a soverign debt crisis in Europe could reduce general fund-state revenues for the 2011-13 biennium by $1.5 billion.

The Update is available here.