Per the State Constitution, the Legislature passes a budget for the next fiscal year in every legislative session, which generally ends three months before that fiscal year starts. The amount of money the Legislature authorizes to spend is based on estimated revenues -- collections of cash -- that are expected to take place over that fiscal year. Monitoring the actual cash collected during the fiscal year is important. If the actual collections fall behind what's estimated to come in, there may not be sufficient cash to support expenditures.