With revenue increasing and money poured in from the federal government, the state of Alabama is still in great shape financially, according to State Treasurer Young Boozer.

Currently, Alabama has $10.6 billion on its balance sheet, which is up from $3.6 billion in 2019.

Friday on Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal,” Boozer said the “state of Alabama is financially healthy right now.”

“When I was elected and started to serve in January of 2011, that treasury fund was about $2.4 billion,” Boozer said. “At the end of my two terms eight years later, when I left office in January of 2019, that amount of money had grown to $3.6 billion. So, it was up 50% over an eight-year period.”

Boozer pointed out the two reasons for the revenue growth in such a short amount of time.

“For the most part, it is all federal money,” he continued. “The state is doing well. So, if you’re talking about what is happening, the underlying economy in the state of Alabama is good. And that has been good for state tax revenues. But on top of that is all of this federal money that has poured in over the last two-and-a-half, three years. The amount is really remarkable.”

He also said the state government would see some extra revenue from investments due to increasing interest rates.

“Yes, interest rates rising, it’s tough on borrowers,” he said, “but if you’re a lender or an investor like we are, it’s been terrific for us. It’s going to add a lot to the general fund.”

The state treasurer said Alabama was not the only state that was seeing this kind of increase in the funds available.

“We’re not alone,” he said. “So, we’re one state of 50. This exact same thing is happening in every state. …And so, there’s an incredible amount of money out there. It’s all being invested in the relatively short term because the money that we got from the federal government has to be spent in the next three to five years. So, it has to be relatively liquid to be available to make those payments to whatever those projects are going to be.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee