Our state’s Comptroller, the officer charged with keeping and reporting on Connecticut’s financial books, just issued her annual review of our state’s fiscal condition. Low and behold, Comptroller Nancy Wyman concluded that we closed out our ledgers on June 30 with a $449 million budget surplus.

Technically, Nancy Wyman is right; Connecticut has a surplus on paper. But how, then, do we square this figure with all the other information we receive seemingly with every newscast, blog entry or latest report from Wall Street: joblessness persists, housing sales have plummeted, car sales have come to a screeching halt and nine out of 12 state revenue streams are down.

How has the State of Connecticut managed its finances better than the private sector and come out in the black in the wake of this recession? Where is the money coming from since there have been no state layoffs or massive cuts in spending? Easy. Connecticut cooks its books.

To achieve the “budget surplus’’ the Democratic Controlled legislature decided to borrow $900 million for operating expenses, raid the state’s Rainy Day Fund of hundreds of millions more and take in billions from the federal government in stimulus money in order to pay for day to day expenses.

The numbers that should make people shudder is that in just three months Connecticut faces a projected deficit of $3.5 billion because of those one-time infusions of cash: stimulus money from Washington, Rainy Day Funds from our piggy bank and borrowing from Wall Street.

House Republicans this year offered numerous alternatives to the budget that was adopted by the Democratic legislature. They included spending cuts to 2009 levels, slashing borrowing and cost-cutting measures that would have preserved vital programs that we must fund. Another key component of these proposals was a commitment to shed services and assets that Connecticut now provides but cannot afford to run or those that could be run more efficiently.

The latest budget news from the Capitol does not square with reality. Last May the Wall Street rating agencies, who have no political stake in what goes on in state government, downgraded Connecticut’s credit rating, thereby costing taxpayers millions more in the long run to pay for government. The agencies concluded that Connecticut is too heavily reliant upon highly volatile tax revenues, one-shot gimmicks such as federal stimulus funds and the state’s piggy bank, and most importantly borrowing, to operate on a daily basis.

The financial markets are the final arbiters of this state’s – or any other states – fiscal health. Comptroller Nancy Wyman, a respected former state lawmaker from Tolland, who happens to be running as Democrat Dan Malloy’s running mate as lieutenant governor, is required by law to issue her findings about the state budget every Sept. 1. She has fulfilled her duty. But it is always worth looking beyond the black and white of a bureaucratic report from the Capitol to find out what may lie behind the numbers.

Plus, there is an election in 60 days.

John Frey is a State Representative from Ridgefield