About the Budget Browser

The Budget Browser, created by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MassBudget), provides comprehensive state budget information that can be accessed and understood by anyone interested in how the state uses its resources.  The Browser allows you to view information on Massachusetts state budgets from Fiscal Year (FY) 2001 to present, as well as current budget proposals offered by the Governor and the Legislature.     

With the Budget Browser, you may look up spending for large policy areas or categories (e.g., Health Care), smaller subcategories (e.g., Public Health), or specific line items.  The Browser allows you to choose whether you would like to look at historical budget information, current budget proposals or a combination of the two.  Finally, in providing information on historical budget information, or comparing historical budgets with current proposals, you can choose whether or not to display your search results using an inflation adjustment.

The Budget Browser provides a number of different ways to look at the state budget:  

·         Compare Past Year Budgets allows you to compare budgets by category and subcategory from 2001 to 2009.    

·         Compare Current Year Budget Proposals allows you to compare current year budget proposals from the Governor and the Legislature by category and subcategory.

·         Compare Current vs. Past Year Budgets allows you to customize your own budget comparison by selecting from past year budgets and current budget proposals.

·         Search Line Items and Categories allows you to compare spending levels for a single line item or group of line items from 2001 to the present.

·         Tax Revenue Information provides a basic overview of the state’s tax system, how it has changed over time, and how it compares to other states.

·         Resources and Glossary provides information on how to use the Browser, a glossary of budget terms and a brief description of the state budget process. 

 

If you have general questions or would like to learn more about the Budget Browser please feel free to contact our Director of Outreach Katrina McCarty at 617-426-1228 x103 or by email at kmccarty@massbudget.org

 

 

 

Methodology

 

I. What Browser Budget Figures Include

The Browser displays final budget numbers for every fiscal year that has come to an end.  The final budget figures include funding approved in the initial budget, known as the General Appropriations Act (GAA), as well as any subsequent supplemental or deficiency budgets, including any reductions made by the Governor under Section 9C of Chapter 29 of the Massachusetts General Laws.  Section 9C requires that the Governor make immediate cuts if state revenues fall significantly below the amount projected in the GAA.  For the current year, the Browser displays budget proposals offered by the Governor and Legislature.

Additionally, budget figures not only include funding appropriated by the GAA, but also funding available as a result of pre-budget transfers and other budget adjustments. Pre-budget transfers include certain taxes and fees that are automatically directed to fund specific items in the budget (for example, a portion of the sales tax is automatically directed to fund the MBTA).  These pre-budget transfers, like line item appropriations, are a way the state spends money.  Because the Budget Browser does include these transfers, the Browser will show a higher total state budget than the GAA for each fiscal year. 

The Budget Browser provides budget adjustments to budget totals that allow for accurate “apples to apples” comparisons of funding for programs. In a few cases, funding that was once a part of the budget is moved off budget and is funded through fees dedicated to that purpose.  In other cases funding that was once off budget has been moved onto the budget. In both cases MassBudget “adjusts” the totals allowing accurate across-year comparisons. 

The FY 2009, 2010 and 2011 final budget numbers also include funding that Massachusetts has received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the federal recovery act) signed by President Obama in February 2009.

The budget changes many times over the course of a fiscal year. The Legislature may add funding to certain programs, and the Governor may cut funding if it is decided that the state does not have enough money to support the current budget. 

 

II. Organizing the Budget: What's in Each Budget Category?

MassBudget organizes the budget into “categories” and “subcategories” to make the budget easier to follow.  This structure groups budget items by function, not by the state department or secretariat that administers the items.  Below is a brief description of the policy areas included in each category and a listing of subcategories.

Education

“Education” includes funding that supports education, from preschool programming through higher education. This category also includes funding for school construction. Subcategories: K-12: Chapter 70 Aid; K-12: Non- Chapter 70 Aid; K-12: School Building Assistance; Early Education and Care; Higher Education.

Environment and Recreation

”Environment and Recreation” includes funding for maintenance of parkways, land management and wildlife preservation, state parks, beaches and pools and keeping the state’s water and air clean. Subcategories: Environment; Fish and Game; and Parks and Recreation.

Health Care

“Health Care” includes funding for the state’s publicly-funded health insurance programs, as well as other health and mental health care services. This category also includes the payments for health insurance benefits for state employees. Subcategories: MassHealth (Medicaid) and Health Reform; Mental Health; Public Health; State Employee Health Insurance.

Human Services

“Human Services” includes funding for a wide variety of programs and services for low-income families as well as human services for children, youth, veterans and other vulnerable individuals. Subcategories: Children, Youth, and Family Services; Disability and Related Services; Elder Services; Transitional Assistance; Other Human Services.

Infrastructure, Housing and Economic Development

“Infrastructure, Housing, and Economic Development” includes funding for transportation (including public transit, highways, and bridges), affordable housing, workforce training, technical and financial assistance to businesses, and community development. This category also includes commercial regulatory programs. Subcategories: Economic Development; Housing; Commercial Regulatory Entities; and Transportation.

Law and Public Safety

“Law and Public Safety” includes funding for public safety (including police, fire, military, and emergency services), corrections, and the state judicial system. Subcategories: Courts and Legal Assistance; Law Enforcement; Prisons, Probation and Parole; Prosecutors; Other Law and Public Safety.

Local Aid

“Local Aid” includes funding that cities and towns receive to help pay for municipal services. This category includes all forms of local aid except for Chapter 70 education aid which is included in the “Education” category.  Subcategories: General Local Aid; Other Local Aid.

Other

“Other” includes funding for a variety of administrative functions, including funding for the Governor, Legislature and all the constitutional officers, funding for pensions and debt service, funding for the state library system, and funding for a number of small offices and commissions. This category also often includes many of the funding reserves for collective bargaining agreements. Subcategories: Constitutional Officers; Debt Service; Executive and Legislative; Libraries; Pensions and Other Administrative.

 

III. Viewing Meaningful Budget Comparisons over Time or Among Various Accounts

Over the years, the organization of state government has changed many times.  Programs and services may move from one department to another. The Browser is designed to accommodate these changes, allowing for meaningful comparisons over the years.

In the Search Line Items and Categories option, the Browser provides comments that explain any reorganizations and consolidations that may affect the line items in your search.  

For example, between FY 2005 and FY 2006, the administration of early childhood education programs moved from the Office for Children within the Executive Office for Health and Human Services to a newly-created Department of Early Education and Care (EEC). In doing so, many programs that had been under other state agencies were moved to EEC and given new line item numbers.   If you choose to look at funding for certain early education and care programs, the Browser will provide a comment at the bottom of the page that provides your search results that explains any reorganizations or consolidations that may have affected this program.

   

Adjusting for Inflation

The Browser allows you to you compare past and current spending in several ways that help to make those comparisons more meaningful.  If you are looking at just one particular year’s budget proposal you can use Nominal growth, to view spending for that year without adjusting for inflation.  The challenge is when you try and compare spending for a particular program over several years because the value of a dollar is different today than it was a year ago, ten years ago, or a hundred years ago.  In comparing spending from different years it is important to adjust for these effects of inflation but inflation affects different costs in different ways.  For example, over the long term the cost of clothing and manufactured goods has declined relative to the cost of services, such as health care.  At our request, the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston provided a more complete analysis of these issues, available here: http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/neppc/memos/2009/tannomara030409.pdf.

Inflation – Consumer goods and services: The standard solution to this comparison problem was to create an official “market basket” of goods and services a typical consumer buys and to calculate a weighted average of the changes in costs of those goods and services.  This is how the standard inflation measure, the consumer price index (CPI), is calculated.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ site for the Consumer Price Index can be found here: http://www.bls.gov/cpi/.  One problem with this measure, or any measure, is that most people are not a typical consumer.  In different regions cost changes are different (particularly for housing, for example) and different consumers buy different things (senior citizens buy more health care, for example).  Thus the CPI is a pretty good, not perfect measure of inflation for consumers. 

Inflation – Government goods and services: The consumer price index is not a good measure of inflation in the context of government spending.  The market basket of goods and services that a state government buys is totally different from the goods and services that a consumer buys.  The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics developed a better measure for this situation.  The Budget Browser allows you to use this other inflation adjustment, called “inflation adjusted – government goods and services.”  This is not perfect for all sectors of government spending because each item that government spends money on actually has its own rate of inflation (healthcare inflation is different from inflation in the costs of the components of building roads).  In the absence of identifying dozens of different inflation factors for each area of spending, this government measure is a good approximation of overall changes in the cost of providing the same services from year to year.  Users of the Browser should be aware, however, that even after adjusting for general inflation increases or decreases in spending on a particular line-item could be due to changes in the cost of the service provided in that item rather than policy decisions to provide more or less of that service. 

Economic Growth: Finally, the Browser provides a measure—spending as a percent of state personal income—that allows users to see if spending on various government services is growing more or less rapidly than the overall state economy. This is an important measure because the annual state budget is essentially a statement about how we, as a Commonwealth, choose to allocate a portion of our income to pay for those things that we do together through government.

This personal income measure answers a different question than the inflation question. In adjusting for inflation we are essentially tracking the growth in costs of providing the same services from year to year. In comparing costs of government services to the overall economy, by contrast, we examine whether spending on government programs is rising or falling as a share of our overall ability to fund them. When spending grows faster than personal income, for example, that can create fiscal challenges. We call this measure “Economic Growth: Spending as a Percentage of Total Income Earned in the State” because it uses changes in personal income as the measure of private sector economic growth that is compared to changes in public sector spending.

When you choose to look at spending on a particular program or set of programs as a share of state personal income, the Browser provides you with the percent of the total economy that is spent on the program(s) you choose. For instance, if you analyze state spending on Local Aid between FY 2001 and FY 2010, the Browser provides you with percentages for each year of public spending. In FY 2001, the state spent about .51 percent of its total personal income on Local Aid. By FY 2010 that percentage fell to .29 percent of the total economy, indicating that the state has devoted less of its total income wealth to Local Aid in FY 2010 than it did in FY 2001.