Category: News and Opinion

This post will compare trends in state government finance for the State of New York and the U.S. total for all states for FY 1972 to FY 2007. The data is in the spreadsheet attached to the previous post, a post contains background information on how it was compiled and what it means. Overall, the data shows that New York’s state and local tax burden is about at the level it had been decades earlier, but spending has shifted. A cut in taxes during the 2000s was not associated with falling spending, but rather with rising debt and deferred pension costs. Rising pension contributions and health care spending, particularly for senior citizens, are crowding out other public services and benefits, a situation that likely became worse following FY 2007. Without low interest rates, the state’s situation would be much more severe. Direct state spending on Parks, Natural Resources and Highways, in particular, is down from what it had been and well below the national average. (Public Transit will be discussed under local government). New York’s state education aid was above the U.S. average in FY1972 and, after a significant increase, FY 2007, but it had been below average in FY 1987 and FY 2000. New York’s state spending on public higher education is somewhat higher than it had been, but remains well below the U.S. average.

Every five years, the U.S. Census Bureau conducts a Census of Governments to record the organization, employment, and finances of every state and local government in the country. The most recent census year was 2007. The organization and employment phases of that effort have long since been completed, but staff turnover, budget cuts, and diminished cooperation from state and local governments (not ours) have delayed the release of financial data until recently. For the past few weeks, I’ve been working to put the detailed data, downloaded from the Bureau, into a format that makes possible a fair comparison between places for the state and local government tax burden (by type of tax), level of spending (by government function), and level of debt. Many adjustments are needed to make such a comparison possible, given differences in population and average income, the varying organization of local government, and variations in the division of responsibility between the state and local level. This post describes the origin of the data, issues in presenting it, and modifications made to it. Multiple posts will follow over the next month or two with the findings. Those interested should read it to understand what it is they will be seeing, and what it means.

The attached spreadsheet contains three worksheets with data on state government, for New York State, the U.S., and a handful of states I have chose for comparison: New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, Illinois, North Carolina, and Texas. As well as providing background, in this post and another to follow I’ll describe how the State of New York compared with other state governments. Before reading the rest of this post, I suggest opening the spreadsheet, and printing the tables in the “Summary 2007” and “NY & U.S. 1972 to 2007” worksheets; each will print on two pages.