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The Nuts and Bolts of the Mississippi Budget: Chapter 2: A Detailed Look at State Spending

September 28th, 2012

In our last blog, readers learned about the state budget and saw a quick overview of the total appropriations for Fiscal Year (FY) 2013. This blog will take a closer look at state spending.

Chapter 2 of The Nuts and Bolts of the Mississippi Budget highlights the budget decisions made for FY 2013 and examines trends in state spending in order to answer the question, “How are our state dollars spent?”

How Are Our State Dollars Spent?
For FY 2013, the Mississippi Legislature appropriated $18.2 billion.  Figure 1, below, shows how this money was distributed. The five largest categories were Medicaid, K-12 education, Colleges and Universities, Highways, and Social Welfare.  Altogether, these five categories account for over 70% of total appropriations.

Different State Services are funded through Different Sources
In the last blog, readers were introduced to the three types of funds that support our state budget (Special, General, and Federal).  Different state services are funded through different funds.  In other words, some services rely more heavily on certain funds than do others.  For example, the majority of services funded through Medicaid are funded with federal dollars, while K-12 education is primarily funded through Mississippi tax revenues.

State Spending Has Remained Stable
This does not mean that the state has not experienced a decline in spending.  However, over the last 10 years, increases or decreases in spending have been in line with the state’s overall economy.

Chapter 2 Wrap Up
This blog included several of the highlights contained in this chapter of The Nuts and Bolts of the Mississippi Budget, but there is still much more to the text.  Follow this link to read more from Chapter 2.  Pay special attention to Figure 4 in Chapter 2 and readers will see how these appropriations play out for each of the 3 types of funds (Special, General, & Federal).

Still Want More?
Feel free to look ahead at the remaining chapters of the text.

Also, be on the lookout for the next blog in this series which will explore the question, “From where does our state get its money?”

Author: Francinia D. McKeithan, Policy Analyst/ SFAI Policy Fellow