State Budget Late and Growing, Again
New York's fiscal year began with no agreement on a 12-month spending plan. Our State budgets have been adopted late 24 out of the last 28 years, with 11 of those budgets being adopted in May or later.
During that same period, the budget has grown from $25.9 billion to a proposed $134 billion. It may not be easy for the State to agree on how to spend taxpayer dollars, but they can certainly agree to spend more.
Here's a peak at those increases:
1982–83 $25.9 Billion
1983–84 $28.4 Billion
1984–85 $31.6 Billion
1985–86 $34.7 Billion
1986–87 $37.4 Billion
1987–88 $39.9 Billion
1988–89 $43.4 Billion
1989–90 $46.4 Billion
1990–91 $48.9 Billion
1991–92 $52.3 Billion
1992–93 $54.8 Billion
1993–94 $57.91 Billion
1994–95 $61.90 Billion
1995–96 $63.23 Billion
1996–97 $62.95 Billion
1997–98 $66.16 Billion
1998–99 $70.70 Billion
1999–00 $73.27 Billion
2000–01 $79.75 Billion
2001–02 $85.04 Billion
2002–03 $89.12 Billion
2003–04 $97.33 Billion
2004–05 $100.67 Billion
2005–06 $104.34 Billion
2006–07 $112.8 Billion
2007–08 $117.7 Billion
2008–09 $120.8 Billion
2009–10 $133.2 Billion
2010–11 $134.0 Billion
CHIPs funding in the 2010-11 Budget
State Budget Update Workshop
Former New York State Budget Director John Cape was at the NYSAC Legislative Conference to provide his insight on the county impact of the current State Budget, the Governor's proposed 2010-2011 spending plan and Division of Budget's 21-Day amendments, which were released this week. For a copy of his slides, click here.
Division of Budget Director Robert Magna made a state budget presentation to a meeting of county executives, board chairs and administrators and managers. His presentation is available here.
2010-11 State Budget Deliberations Begin
In January, Governor David Paterson released his Executive Budget recommendation and, as expected, it was very lean.
Given the size of the expected $7.4 billion fiscal gap in SFY 2010-11 and increasing gaps over the next several budget cycles, State lawmakers are faced with difficult budget-balancing decisions.
The chart below highlights how deep a hole the State is now facing. Even if every one of the Governor’s budget recommendations were implemented, the out-year budget gaps will still be enormous, requiring even greater budgetary controls and tough decisions in the future.
Multi-Year State Fiscal Picture |
||
Combined GF/HCRA Gap Forecast |
Revised 2009-10 Budget (If No Action is Taken) |
Enactment of 2010-11 Executive Budget |
2010-11 |
($7.4 billion) |
$0 |
2011-12 |
($14.3 billion) |
($6.3 billion) |
2012-13 |
($18.3 billion) |
($10.5 billion) |
2013-14 |
($20.7 billion) |
($12.2 billion) |
Cumulative Gap |
($60.7 billion) |
($29 billion) |
As you can see, the State has truly reached a fiscal breaking point. As gut wrenching and difficult as it will be to close the 2010-11 state budget gap, the Legislature and Governor will have to do even more in the future. The time for incremental change and temporarily papering over budget gaps with one-shots, temporary federal funds and unending tax increases is over.
For more, see NYSAC’s January 22nd Weekly Wire
Budget Overview
The State fiscal year 2010-11 gap is estimated at $7.4 billion (which includes a carryover deficit of $500 million from the current year).
The gap is closed as follows, while maintaining a $1.2 billion reserve in the rainy day fund:
• $5.6 billion in spending controls (cuts) and program changes (includes $700 million in cuts from the Deficit Reduction Plan, DRP, enacted in December of 2009),
• $1.1 billion in revenue actions (tax and fee increases), and
• $760 million in one-shots and tax audit recovery enforcement actions ($221 million).
NOTE: The Budget does not assume the continuation of federal funding associated with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) beyond its current sunset date of December 31, 2010. For comparative purposes, the full annual general fund value of the ARRA funds is about $5.2 billion ($3.7 billion due to enhanced FMAP under Medicaid and $1.5 billion for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund). The 2010-11 Budget includes three quarters of current law ARRA relief valued at about $4.6 billion. Spending controls/cuts of $4.9 billion (not including DRP actions) largely stem from the following broad categories:
• $1.75 billion – School Aid, education, special education and lottery;
• $868 million – Health Care and Mental Hygiene ($45 million);
• $325 million – Local government aid;
• $213 million – STAR;
• $208 million – Higher education;
• $201 million – Human services/labor/housing;
• $59 million – Other
The 2010-11 Executive Budget actions would also reduce cumulative State budget gaps over the next several years by about 50 percent.
Click here for the Governor’s Executive Budget Proposal.
Governor’s Budget to Include Significant Local Government Mandate Relief
The Governor’s Budget, to be released next Tuesday, will include mandate relief for local governments that the NYS Division of Budget estimates could save local governments more than $1 billion over the next three years. NYSAC and county officials have long sought protections from new unfunded mandates and relief from existing mandates to ease pressure on county budgets and taxpayers. The Budget will include over 100 mandate reform initiatives. Some of the big legislative proposals include:
- Implementing a 4-year moratorium on new unfunded mandates – the moratorium would suspend the implementation of any such mandates that would require local government or school districts to undertake new programs, increase the level of service for existing programs, or increase the value of any property tax exemptions at a cost of more than $10,000 for any individual municipality or $1 million for local governments statewide;
- Caps counties exposure to Special Education Pre-K costs by implementing a 2 percent annual growth cap with school districts required to pick up all costs in excess of this growth;
- A comprehensive package of Early Intervention program reforms;
- Maintains the 3 percent Medicaid cap;
- Numerous reforms related to local jails and probation.
For more on the mandate relief included in the Budget, see: http://www.budget.state.ny.us/pubs/press/2010/MandateReformInitiatives.pdf.
