State revenues are running 8.5 percent ahead of the same period last fiscal year, but state tax director Kurt Kawafuchi said yesterday that it's too early to tell what sort of growth the state will see for the year.

The state saw growth of 16 percent during the past fiscal year. The state Council on Revenues, in its first projection for the fiscal year that began July 1, predicted growth of 6 percent through June 30, 2006, citing a slower visitor and construction market.

But monthly revenue figures can be volatile, and the new projection is based on just the first two months of the fiscal year, July and August, and could be premature, Kawafuchi said.

"If it keeps up over eight or nine months, then that's a lot better," he said. "I think it's still too soon to make any kind of call ... "

The state's total take for August was $398.3 million, according to the state Department of Taxation. So far, general fund revenues collected during July and August totaled $664.9 million, the department said.

General excise and use taxes, which account for the greatest single category of revenue collections for the state, were $238.8 million in August, and are up 10 percent compared with the same month last year.

The transient accommodations tax, or hotel room tax, grew by 8.7 percent this year when compared with the same two months last year. The total hotel room tax collections for August was $21 million.

Kawafuchi also said it would be mid-November before it is known what effect, if any, Hurricane Katrina would have on the state's economy, because businesses, including hotels and other tourism-related companies, have until the end of October to pay their taxes.

"We don't know at this point what effect Katrina will have in the long term for Hawai'i, particularly in tourism," he said.

The state took in a total of $3.99 billion in taxes in the fiscal year that ended June 30, which was an unusually high 16 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.