Gov. Perdue’s Budget Increases Per Capita Spending
On Page 78 of the Governor’s presentation of the Fiscal Year 2010-2011 Recommended Budget prepared by her Office of State Budget and Management is this claim “Budget Highlights”
“SPENDS 5.0% LESS PER CAPITA THAN FY2008-09”
That sounds like some belt tightening is going on. But the claim is not true. From the Office of the Governor we obtained the state population estimates used for all other purposes. From her office and from Fiscal Research we obtained the actual spending levels for 2008-09, 2009-10, and projected for 2010-11. For the current year this accepts the estimate that $400 million of the current budget will not be spent and takes her budget for 2010-11 and reduces it by about $200 million (for unavoidable reversions that would be present in almost any year without regard to the economy). These figures include federal stimulus dollars because this is what she proposes to spend.
The results:
| 2008/2009 | 2009/2010 | 2010/2011 | |
| Population | 9,240,289 | 9,397,397 | 9,502,904 |
| Spending | $19.6 billion | $20 billion | $20.5 billion |
| Spending Per Capita | $2,121 | $2,128 | $2,157 |
Spending per capita increases under her proposed budget. It does not decrease at all – much less by the claimed 5%.
See press release entitled, GOVERNOR PROPOSES SPENDING INCREASE, wherein we demonstrate that the actual level of spending increase in the Governor’s budget is 2.5%. After it was released we confirmed this 2.5% figure with the Governor’s Chief Budget Officer.
