Texas Comptroller Susan Combs sees some rays of sunshine on the economic horizon peeking through the clouds.

Right now, the state’s economy is still feeling the repercussions of the recession, as is evident by the steep decline in the monthly sales tax collections. So state revenues for the current budget year, which ends next week, will come in short of projections, Combs said.

But that will not knock the state budget off balance because the loss of revenue has been offset by lower spending by state agencies, Combs said at a policy forum sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

She expects moderate economic growth in the coming year and then a full recovery come 2011. That is welcome news to state budget-writers who are already looking at perhaps a $10 billion budget hole next session.

The state also got a big wet kiss from Wall Street in the form of a very favorable interest rate of .48 percent on $5.5 billion in short-term debt.

“The sale shows the financial community’s utmost confidence that Texas is a great investment, and our state government continues to be fiscally responsible by spending taxpayer dollars wisely,” Combs said in a statement this week.

The state’s sizable rainy day fund was essential to getting that favorable interest rate. And other speakers at the policy forum acknowledged that the reserve fund would have been much smaller without the $12 billion infusion of federal stimulus money in the 2010-11 budget.

The stimulus money “changed the whole landscape,” said Blaine Brunson, budget director for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

A nearly $4 billion budget shortfall disappeared and talk of tapping the rainy day fund ceased once it became clear that the stimulus money would be available in time to write the budget.

The rainy day fund is expected to have $9.1 billion as of the end of 2011 and that money will be needed, Brunson said.