A decade of spending revealed

The latest installment of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council’s “How Rhode Island Expenditures Compare” series includes its standard dizzying array of information, including 65 tables detailing just what state and local governments are spending and how those expenditures stack up against other states and the nation,

In both methods of looking at public spending, per $1,000 of personal income and per capita, Rhode Island finds itself on the wrong side of the draw, ranking No. 22 among the 50 states on a personal-income basis and No. 15 on a per capita basis for the most direct general expenditures. In both cases, overall spending increased, but not as much as in other states. As a result, Rhode Island’s rank improved, from No. 19 per $1,000 of income and No. 11 per capita in fiscal 2004.

One of the most interesting pieces of the long report is the ability to look how spending habits changed over time. In this case the window is from fiscal 2004 to fiscal 2014 (the most recent year available across the comparison set).

On a per capita basis, Rhode Island taxpayers went from spending $300.63 on interest in fiscal 2004 to $563.37 in fiscal 2014, an increase of 87.4 percent that drove the Ocean State’s rank on that spending from No. 15 to No. 3 in the nation. Interest payments increased 20.5 percent over the decade for the entire country, going from $281.79 per capita to $339.42.

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Not all spending categories saw major increases. In fact, in a number of them, Rhode Island saw increases (none of the spending figures were adjusted for inflation) well-below the national averages, although one might question some of that relative frugality. For example, while transportation spending across the nation increased 35.9 percent from fiscal 2004 to fiscal 2014 on a per capita basis to $605.69, it increased 16.7 percent to $493.25 in the Ocean State. With Rhode Island’s reputation for poor transportation infrastructure, it would seem that “you get what you pay for” is an appropriate observation.

Spending on social service and income maintenance (a category that includes cash assistance, vendor payments, health and hospitals, and employment security and veterans services administration) grew 59.8 percent across the U.S., while Rhode Island saw an increase of 22.2 percent, a growth rate that moved the state from No. 7 on this list to No. 19.

Similarly, public-safety spending (which includes police protection, fire protection and corrections expenditures) increased 22 percent in the Ocean State, much less than the 40.8 percent across the nation, although Rhode Island fell only two places to No. 7 on the list. •

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