New York’s windfall from settlements with banks and financial institutions has grown to $5.1 billion since March, according to records released Monday.

The mid-year report from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget department bumped the state’s unexpected surplus up another $625 million from its estimated level at the end of June, with the boost coming from separate $300 million financial settlements with Bank of America and Standard Chartered Bank and a $25 million agreement with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

In all, it means the state has about $4.8 billion more in settlement payments than it had budgeted for when it passed its annual spending plan in March.

Lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo will negotiate how best to spend the surplus when they return to the state Capitol in January.

“We have over $4 billion and we have to look to see if we can do some infrastructure work,” Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, said last week on public radio’s “The Capitol Pressroom.”

The current state budget, which runs from April 2014 through March 2015, totals about $138 billion, not including some federal aid for the Affordable Care Act and Superstorm Sandy cleanup. The mid-year budget report, posted Monday, was due in late October.

The governor’s proposed 2015-16 budget will be revealed in late January. But he’s already suggested using $1.5 billion to set up an “Upstate Revitalization Fund” to put state dollars toward job-creation opportunities in struggling upstate cities, modeled after the $1 billion the state has pledged in Buffalo alone.

In a book of policy proposals released last month during his re-election campaign, Cuomo said he also wanted to put $500 million toward rewards for local governments that agree to share services or consolidate. He also suggested creating a statewide “infrastructure bank” with the settlement funds, though he didn’t say how much he would put toward it.

So far, the state has received about $3.7 billion of the $5.1 billion in settlement payments, according to the report.

The state has entered into numerous agreements with banks and insurers in recent months, including a deal with BNP Paribas that brought $2.2 billion to the state’s coffers so far, with another $1.4 billion on the way. The agreement with the French bank settled claims that it had funneled money through New York properties to Iran, Sudan and Cuba.

The mid-year report included good news for the budget in terms of taxes, with collections about $1.1 billion ahead of schedule through September. About $337 million came from higher income-tax collections than anticipated.

But it also suggests the state may again participate in a much-debated pension-smoothing plan — though no final decisions have been made.

The state’s contribution rate for the pension system next year was higher than Cuomo’s budget department had expected, in part because the state Comptroller’s Office made an adjustment that anticipates retirees will live longer and therefore collect more benefits.

Now, Cuomo’s office is weighing whether to essentially borrow $395 million from the retirement fund next fiscal year to keep its contribution rate down, with that money paid back over the next 10 years with interest.

Each of the past five state budgets have made use of the borrowing plan, with the amount totaling about $2.5 billion, according to E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center, an Albany-based think tank.

Elizabeth Lynam, vice president of the fiscally conservative Citizens Budget Commission, suggested the state should use some of the settlement money to pay back its previous pension obligations.

“The fact that they’re on the one hand showing all the surplus that’s available from the bank settlements and on the other postponing more pension payments, those two moves together don’t make any sense,” Lynam said.

© 2014 Gannett News Service