Topeka ? Around this time last year, Kansas had to halt state income tax refunds because the state was essentially broke.

That’s not the case now.

So far, the state has issued nearly 900,000 refunds totaling $41.2 million, according to the Kansas Department of Revenue.

Of the nearly 1.4 million state tax returns sent to the department this year, there are currently 13,000 returns with refunds waiting to be issued.

Most of the 13,000 returns were received after the April 15 tax deadline, while a small number received prior to the deadline need additional information from the taxpayer before issuing a refund, officials said.

“We have notified the taxpayers,” said Freda Warfield, of the Kansas Department of Revenue.

At the end of May 2009, the state had suspended income tax refunds for several weeks because of a shortfall in revenue. And earlier in 2009, income tax refunds were held up briefly when then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, and Republican legislative leaders got into a budget fight. It was resolved after a tense standoff when Sebelius signed a deficit reduction bill and Republicans agreed to $225 million in inter-government borrowing.

But this year things are going more smoothly on the tax refunds.

In addition to having enough revenue to make refunds, the department reported it is able to return refunds quicker because of the increased use of electronic filing.

In 2008, 914,002 individual state income tax returns were sent electronically, as compared with 1,150,427 this year.