Latest news with #NationalAssociationofStateBudgetOfficers
Bloomberg
18-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
US States Likely to Defy US Downgrade to Keep Top Credit Ratings
US states from Florida to North Carolina and Texas would likely hold onto top-notch credit scores from Moody's Ratings, mostly because they're in better fiscal shape than the federal government itself. More than a dozen states have pristine triple-A ratings from Moody's, according to Bloomberg-compiled data, ranking them higher than the US government, which was stripped of its last top credit rating on Friday. That's in part thanks to requirements for all but one, including the District of Columbia, to balance their operating budget in some form, according to a 2021 report by the National Association of State Budget Officers.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
As electric vehicle use grows in California, the state rethinks the future of its gas tax
As more drivers turn to zero-emission vehicles and California continues to invest in clean transportation, the state's gas tax could be a thing of the past. California's gas tax, which stands at 59 cents, is the primary source of state funding for highways and roads. However, revenue from the gas tax has fallen. The most recent report from the National Association of State Budget Officers found that gas taxes raised 41% of transportation revenue in fiscal year 2016, but that percentage had fallen to about 36% in fiscal year 2024. California DMV releases proposed rules for autonomous heavy-duty trucks, large vehicles On average, Californians pay about $300 a year in state gas taxes, in addition to other state fees that support transportation. To combat that, the state has explored implementing a California Road Charge, which 'could replace the gas tax with a mileage-based user fee charged to drivers who use the roads,' according to the program's website. Essentially, residents who drive more would pay more, and those who drive less would pay less. The state says it's working 'to develop a road charge program that is fair, transparent, and sustainable so that it meets our road maintenance needs now and in the future.' As the state continues to explore alternatives to the gas tax, it continues to invest in clean transportation. Here's how California's license plates will look different next year In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that California has more public and shared private electric vehicle chargers installed statewide than gasoline nozzles. A total of 178,549 public and shared private EV chargers are installed statewide, while the number of gasoline nozzles across the state stands at 120,000. Results from a pilot program to test the road charge system launched in August 2024 and concluded in January. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How much does Minnesota depend on federal money? Here's how the state compares to others
Minnesota depends less on federal funding than just over half the other states in the country, according to a recent report from WalletHub. To find out how big the difference in federal dependence is from state to state, WalletHub compared them using three different metrics: the return on taxes paid to the federal government, the share of federal jobs and federal funding as a share of state revenue. The amount of federal funding in state budgets ranges between 18% and 50%, depending on the state, according to data from the National Association of State Budget Officers. In Minnesota, that figure was about 33%, or close to average. Many states rely on the federal government to help pay for programs that serve millions of people, such as Medicaid, which serves more than 72 million people, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves nearly 43 million people. The report comes as President Donald Trump's administration has laid off more than 62,000 federal workers across 17 different agencies in less than two months, USA TODAY reported. Meanwhile, a budget resolution narrowly passed by the House calls for $2 trillion worth of federal spending cuts. Minnesota ranked 28th. Total score: 38.69 State residents' dependency rank: 14th State government's dependency rank: 40th Alaska Kentucky West Virginia Mississippi South Carolina New Jersey California Delaware Massachusetts Utah Wisconsin: 33rd Iowa: 41st South Dakota: 11th North Dakota: 25th This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Minnesota ranks near middle among states that depend on federal funds
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How much does North Dakota depend on federal money? Here's how the state compares to others
About a third of North Dakota's state budget relies on federal funding, according to a recent report from WalletHub. To find out how big the difference in federal dependence is from state to state, WalletHub compared them using three different metrics: the return on taxes paid to the federal government, the share of federal jobs and federal funding as a share of state revenue. The amount of federal funding in state budgets ranges between 18% and 50%, depending on the state, according to data from the National Association of State Budget Officers. In North Dakota, that figure was about 31%, or close to average. Many states rely on the federal government to help pay for programs that serve millions of people, such as Medicaid, which serves more than 72 million people, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves nearly 43 million people. The WalletHub report comes as President Donald Trump's administration has laid off more than 62,000 federal workers across 17 different agencies in less than two months, USA TODAY reported. Meanwhile, a budget resolution narrowly passed by the House calls for $2 trillion worth of federal spending cuts. North Dakota ranked 25th. Total score: 40.43 State residents' dependency rank: 3rd State government's dependency rank: 50th Alaska Kentucky West Virginia Mississippi South Carolina New Jersey California Delaware Massachusetts Utah South Dakota: 11th Minnesota: 28th Montana: 16th This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: North Dakota ranks 25th in states most dependent on federal money
Boston Globe
18-02-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Massachusetts's budget is projected to grow 50 percent from just seven years ago. How did that happen?
Healthcare costs have shot up, often outpacing inflation. The state, while new for some programs initially covered by federal COVID-era dollars, adding hundreds of millions of dollars in costs. It remains to be seen to what degree the state can, or will, shoulder an even larger fiscal burden should President Trump's The pandemic also remixed state finances in previously unseen ways, swelling state tax collections, which, in turn, helped to drive additional spending. In this way, Massachusetts was part of a national trend: Between 2019 and the current fiscal year, state tax collections nationwide ballooned by 40 percent, including multiple years of double-digit growth, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers, a nonpartisan trade group. Advertisement 'That level of revenue growth was unprecedented,' said Brian Sigritz, the group's director of state fiscal studies. Massachusetts' spending has matched, and ultimately could even exceed, that rate. Should lawmakers pass a budget at the $62 billion spending level that Healey proposed, the state budget will have grown by 48 percent from the $42 billion plan the state adopted in 2019, the last fiscal year untouched by the effects of the pandemic. In comparison, the state's spending plan grew by about 37 percent in the seven-year stretch proceeding the pandemic. Taken together, should lawmakers adopt Healey's proposed budget, state spending would effectively double from fiscal year 2012, when then-Governor Deval Patrick signed a $30.6 billion budget. Advertisement Last month, Healey proposed a 7.4 percent increase over the budget she on MassHealth — the state's Medicaid program — alone would jump by more than $2.5 billion under Healey's plan, or 13 percent, from the current budget, at a time when healthcare costs are rising faster than inflation. 'It's not sustainable growth‚' state Senator Michael Rodrigues, a Westport Democrat who chairs the Senate's budget committee, said of the overall 7 percent spending increase represented in Healey's budget plan. 'We have to be very careful about how we expand the bottom line.' The Massachusetts Senate and the House won't release their own budget plans until the spring, and both Rodrigues and his House counterpart, state Representative Aaron Michlewitz, emphasized it's not yet clear what spending level the Legislature will embrace. 'Our task,' said Michlewitz, a North End Democrat, 'is to make sure we're putting forth a responsible budget that doesn't put us into circumstances that we can't get out of.' How Massachusetts got to this point, even during an unprecedented time, offers some guidance. During the pandemic, Massachusetts and other states were awash in cash, thanks to a mix of federal aid and skyrocketing tax revenues that bucked the Advertisement That flood of money flowed in various directions. Policymakers plowed billions into the state's emergency savings account, which is designed to backstop the budget in case of an economic downturn and now stands at But a lot also dropped directly into the budget, which grew by 9 percent and 7 percent, respectively, in 2023 and 2024. 'The economy was really weird, and we were keeping up with that,' said Evan Horowitz, executive director of Tuft University's Center for State Policy Analysis. 'But even after you adjust for that, the budget is still growing.' Lawmakers and Healey have helped spur some of that spending growth by opting to pay for programs after federal aid dried up, arguing the initiatives were crucial for state residents. That included paying Advertisement 'Yes, the budget has increased, but so has poverty and inequity,' said Viviana Abreu-Hernández, president of the left-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. 'The state has invested more money into supporting communities that have been historically more vulnerable and that the pandemic showed how vulnerable they were.' Revenue from the millionaires tax, which voters approved in 2022, also helped fund a slew of new programs, including Healey is also seeking to use some of that new surtax to cover the costs of school aid increases, which the state committed to under a 2019 funding overhaul. But even with hundreds of millions of more dollars dedicated each year, the new formula did not Spending on MassHealth, the largest single piece of the state budget, and for health and social services personnel are also putting increasing pressure on state coffers. More than 2 million people relied on MassHealth for health insurance as of last year, or roughly 260,000 more than before the pandemic — and more than state officials expected. The services the state is covering are also simply costing more, particularly for long-term care, where costs have shot up by 11 percent alone, said Matt Gorzkowicz, Healey's budget chief. Costs for the state's emergency shelter system have climbed over $1 billion a year, but even if Healey and lawmakers are able to drive down costs with a larger drag on the annual budget, given the state has repeatedly turned to an account seeded with surplus money from past years to fill the gap. Advertisement 'When the music stops, it will become a budget issue,' said Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed budget watchdog. 'We had a base budget that got a little ahead of ourselves during the pandemic,' he added, noting the goal generally is to 'get back' to limiting spending growth to 3 percent each year. 'If we don't do that in the long term, the state is not going to have budgets it can support.' Others warn the state is in for a reckoning, particularly should Trump and Congress slash federal aid to states. (His administration has paying the millionaires tax, by leaving the state or by devising other tax strategies to avoid the payments, it will become less reliable and threaten the new programs built upon its revenue. 'It's going to be a crash,' Craney said. 'It's very predictable.' Matt Stout can be reached at
