If Freddy Krueger were visiting Arizona’s treasury instead of terrorizing teenagers’ dreams, he would be clawing, burning and plunging it into another nightmare of billion-dollar proportions.

Arizona lawmakers will likely spend the 2015 legislative session grappling with where to find hundreds of millions of dollars more than they’ve budgeted for education over the next five years.

Thanks to a significant uptick in tax collections that began in the last half of FY11, JLBC is now estimating the surplus for FY12 will be $510 million, though it seems likely that number will rise in the coming months.

For a state that is starving for good news, the recently-concluded fiscal year has brought some relief as annual revenue grew for the first time since the recession, preliminary figures released on July 27 showed.

Arizona's recovery is holding steady. JLBC reported that, for the ninth consecutive month, April posted year-over-year growth in revenue collections.