Truth in budgeting:
The hidden code to breaking state budget numbers
By Barbara Anderson
February 3, 2004
Long-time CLT members are accustomed to our keeping track of state budgets year-to-year, so they can see how much state government is growing. This has been difficult the last few years as items like the MBTA, pension funding, and some Medicaid funding are funded differently or
moved "off-budget."
Unlike the Dukakis years -- when we had to spend huge amounts of time and effort digging out the secrets behind
his "11 balanced budgets in a
row" -- we now have access to the fiscal minds on Beacon Hill.
The Department of Revenue is always helpful with tax numbers; for the budget data we went to the independent state Comptroller's office and to Governor Romney's Office of Administration and Finance. With the help of a budget expert in the latter's Fiscal Affairs Office, we were able to add the FY'99-'05 numbers to our chart.
As nearly as we can determine, Beacon Hill leaders don’t publicize budget comparisons themselves because they are writ on shifting sands, and official numbers that are used by the bond agencies must be exact. There are also various accounting procedures, some of which add in federal fund transfers and other complexities. We look only at the state operating budget, the one you read about in newspapers when the various budgets are
presented and discussed, and we try to adjust for new definitions of the word "budget."
The best source of "right now" numbers is the state bond prospectus, which experts in budget reading put together. But with
the state's budget history, don’t bet on the numbers; some of the adjustments are still a mystery to us.
For instance, we don’t know what caused the big jump in FY'97 that wasn’t there at the time. And keep in mind that each year’s numbers are an estimate until the comptroller's office closes the books several months after the budget year ends.
The baseline budget that we use is the last Dukakis budget. Note that the first Weld budget is a genuine decrease in dollar spending; the apparent decreases in later years reflect "off-budget" movement. By the way, these are actual
dollar amounts; we do not adjust for inflation.
|
State Budgets: FY'88 - FY'03
and how to read them |
|
Fiscal
Year
|
Amount
(in billions)
|
Explanation |
| FY’88 |
$11 |
Dukakis "Campaign for
President of US" budget, followed
by fiscal crises, fee and tax increases including "temporary" income tax hike.
|
| FY'91 |
$13.63 |
Last Dukakis budget. |
| FY'92 |
$13.42 |
First Weld budget. |
| FY'93 |
$14.7 |
|
| FY'94 |
$15.5 |
|
| FY'95 |
$16.4 |
|
| FY'96 |
$16.9 |
|
| FY'97 |
$18.5 |
|
| FY'98 |
$19.6 |
|
| FY'99 |
$20.2 |
|
| FY'00 |
$22.4 |
|
| FY'01 |
$22.1 |
Shift in MBTA funding, not a spending cut. |
| FY'02 |
$22.8 |
|
| FY'03 |
$22.4 |
Some Medicaid funding (from new nursing home
tax) moved off-budget. |
| FY'04 |
$22.6
(estimated) |
Some Medicaid
funding, some MassHealth, new pension funding, moved off-budget. If added
back in, FY’04 current estimate would be $23 billion. |
| FY'05 |
$22.979
(proposed) |
(As proposed by Gov.
Romney) With pension
money, this amount would be $24.2 billion. With Medicaid-tax spending back
in, it would be $24.645. |
|