Texas comptroller Glenn Hegar last month deposited $3.06 billion – the second highest total in the fund’s history – into the state’s Economic Stabilization Fund for fiscal year 2024. The so-called “Rainy Day Fund” was created in 1988, and oil and gas production tax is the source of the majority of revenue deposited into the fund each year. Hegar said earlier this year the fund is expected to reach a total of $27 billion by fiscal year 2025. The 2024 deposit is second only to $3.64 billion deposited in FY2023.
In 2014 a constitutional amendment mandated that an equal amount is deposited into the State Highway Fund. That means in the last two years a combined total of $13.4 billion was deposited into the ESF and the state’s highway fund. Railroad Commission of Texas said in a statement, “It all points to how important the energy sector continues to be for the state economy and jobs and for funding the needs of Texans through the state budget.”