This week state lawmakers will get down to the business of passing a budget. Governor Bill Haslam says he’ll unveil his final update Monday, adding back at least some funds that were cut from the original $30 billion spending plan.

In past years, incoming money has been so iffy that the governor – last year Haslam and before that Phil Bredesen – waited another month before serving up the last budget update. But just beyond halfway through the fiscal year, the state has $250 million more than it expected to collect.

Haslam says the outlook has improved enough to restore some funding to programs that had been trimmed.

“We had a big chunk of things that we had been funding with non-recurring money that went out of the budget, even though we put about $100 million worth back into it. We’re trying to see as much of that stuff that was cut to figure back into it.”

The Department of Education – in particular – has many programs that have been running on one-time money.

Finance Commissioner Mark Emkes is scheduled to begin explaining the budget update to General Assembly committees tomorrow.

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The budget was submitted in late January, at his annual State of the State address.

The state’s latest revenue report covers the first seven months of the fiscal year, through February (state’s accrual system runs a month behind most business fiscal years).

For seven months:

Overall state revenues are over-collected (compared to estimates) by $251 million.

Sales tax year-to-date growth rate is 7 percent over previous year.

Franchise and excise taxes on businesses were over-collected by $148 million, which is a growth rate of more than 21 percent. An uptick in F&E taxes means businesses expect to make more money this year, and so must pre-pay more taxes.

Privilege taxes, another business revenue stream, were up in February but still about $2 million below estimates for the seven month period.