Photo by Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie

The District is on pace to finish the current fiscal year with a $140 million budget surplus, Mayor Vince Gray’s office announced today. With fiscal 2012 set to end Sunday, the District’s coffers were boosted thanks to an uptick in employment and increased tax receipts.

Since October 1, 2011, D.C.’s income tax revenue increased $51.2 million over the previous year, while sales taxes jumped by $22.8 million.

“This good news is affirmation that we are reaping the benefits of our investments in growing the District’s economy and getting our residents back to work,” Gray said in a news release.

But another big piece of of the additional revenue came from the District’s grid of traffic cameras, which raked in $23 million in “automatic traffic enforcement,” the Post’s Mike DeBonis reports.

Gray’s announcement wasn’t all positive though. With Congress preparing to take the carving knife to the federal budget, the mayor is concerned that sequestration could have a deleterious effect on the District’s economy.

“The District’s fiscal future looks far bleaker if Congress and the President do not act quickly to prevent what everyone agrees is a completely unacceptable and destructive means of reducing the federal budget,” he said.