Budget & Tax

Budget bill versus crisis claim

May 24, 2017

With the appearance and initial passage of a state budget bill, SB 860, the question of how much money state government will have to operate in the 2018 fiscal year has an answer.

Despite all of the claims of a state a budget crisis, appropriations to state agencies are set to increase by $71 million dollars to $6.83 billion. This increase in appropriations comes after a decline of $400 million in appropriations from FY16 to FY17.

However, as noted recently by OCPA, appropriations are just a piece of the pie. In fact, that pie grew by $540 million in FY17 to $24.5 billion.

To claim that state government has been cut to the bone when state spending has been increasing is tough to sell. Now that appropriations themselves have climbed, it becomes even harder to suggest that our state government is in dire need of more revenue.

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