per capita

Click here to view and here to listen to Fergus Hodgson discussing this Spotlight report. RALEIGH — North Carolina state government is spending more money per person this…

Gov. Mike Easley proposed a $20 billion operating budget and $20.1 billion total spending plan for fiscal year (FY) 2007-08. The operating budget is $1.3 billion more than in FY 2006-07, a 7.2 percent increase.

Budget proposals from Gov. Mike Easley and the Senate put state spending back on the path of rapid growth last seen in the late 1990s. After inflation, the state will spend 10 percent more per resident on operations in the FY2006-07 than it did just three years ago. Real spending per resident is up 23 percent in the last decade. If the General Assembly had restricted spending growth to inflation and population growth over the decade, the General Fund operations budget would be $3.4 billion less than proposed.

The budget proposals from the senate and governor return North Carolina to a path of rapid spending growth. Education and Medicaid continue to expand, but economic development joins them as an important growth area. Government spending on a per capita basis retreated after Fiscal Year 1999-2000, but will be 28 percent higher in FY2006-07 than it was in FY2002-03.