New data shows that most of the predictions about how much cash would flow into state coffers for the month of February were wrong.

Controller John Chiang released the latest figures this afternoon, and the news is this: Governor Schwarzenegger’s projections for General Fund revenues missed the mark by $82 million, or 1.5 percent.

That may not seem too bad, considering that General Fund revenues totaled almost $96 billion in 2006-07. But it’s another warning sign about the current fragile state of the California economy.

In fact, an examination of the data shows that the shortfall was masked by what looks like a one-time spike in personal income tax revenues.

Chiang’s staff says that personal income tax receipts were $263 million better than expected, or 19.2 percent over projections… and that the money came from taxes withheld from paychecks.

Might more payroll taxes mean larger payrolls for companies, i.e. more jobs and a recovering economy?

Doubtful, says the new report. After all, California lost jobs in January; and it seems unlikely that a big turnaround appeared all of a sudden in February. Rather, the controller’s experts surmize that the extra cash probably came from one-time things like employees selling their stock options and pocketing the cash.

In other words, don’t pop the champagne corks.

And reinforcing that dour mood: sales tax receipts were $191 million below forecast (a 5.1 percent miss) and corporate tax receipts came in $24 million (or 12.5 percent) below expected levels.

That means that without the better-than-expected personal income tax revenues, February’s shortfall in actual state government cash might have been as much as four times worse than it ended up.