On July 1, the majority of states ended fiscal year 2013 and began fiscal year 2014, with 45 states having already enacted budgets for fiscal 2014. Three state legislatures (IL, MA, and RI) have passed fiscal 2014 budgets and are awaiting action by the governor on at least some of their appropriation bills. There are only two legislatures that have not yet fully finalized a budget but are continuing to operate under a continuing resolution, North Carolina and Oregon.
It is interesting to see how much other states spend in their budgets compared to North Carolina. Obviously one cannot take these figures as an apples to apples comparison, since every state operates differently. For example, North Carolina and Kentucky have a General Fund, which is the figure most common in debates and media. Unless one understands that all transportation funding is done outside the General Fund in both of these states, it would be hard to compare their total budget numbers to other states that include all transportation within the General Fund.
Below is a chart showing the Governor’s proposed General Fund spending for each state, of which North Carolina is the 4th highest in the Southeast.
