The Deltek Straight Dope on State Budgets, Part II: State Revenue Growth

Deltek Sr. Analyst Chris Cotner reports.

Untangling Business Fact from Media Sensationalism

The National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) and the National Governor’s Association (NGA) recently released a report outlining the fiscal condition of the states. Some media coverage has sensationalized the report and the states’ fiscal conditions. This analysis examines NASBO numbers and related business implications, in black and white. Deltek believes in presenting the straight dope.

As highlighted by NASBO, state general funds (GF) budgetary conditions are actually improving in FY 2012, albeit slowly. The economic recovery is still tepid. NASBO projects growth to continue, with slowly improving economic conditions in FY 2012 and 2013. Deltek projects similar improvement in state all funds (AF) budgets, with slow growth in 2013 and improved growth looking forward to 2014 and 2015. So, while some media outlets would lead the business community to believe that doom and gloom lie ahead for the states, the data shows otherwise. Simply, expenditures, revenues, balances, and rainy day funds are all up and improving. This is good news for the GovCon community.

In this installment of the blog series, Deltek offers a snapshot into state GF revenues.

State GF revenues experienced an overall increase of 6.42 percent from FY 2010 to 2011 and an increase of 1.60 percent from FY 2011 to 2012. As discussed previously, GF expenditures are roughly tracking revenues, as states continue to practice financial restraint in light of the recent budget crisis. More specifically, 45 states experienced GF revenue gains from FY 2010 to 2011, while only 40 had revenue gains from FY 2011 to 2012. While revenue gains slowed a bit in 2012, two consecutive years of revenue gains headed out of the recession bode well for continued recovery and future business prospects.

For the complete blog, go here.

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