Massachusetts has a budget for fiscal 2013 while South Carolina remains the only state without one, 11 days into the new fiscal year.
On Sunday Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed a $32.5 billion state budget. The spending total is up from 4% from last year’s budget total, while officials anticipate revenue will be up by 4.5%.
The current year budget increase follows a $750 million cut in the fiscal 2012 budget from fiscal 2011 levels.
South Carolina is the last state without an enacted budget in the new fiscal year, which started on July 1 in most states, including South Carolina and Massachusetts.
The South Carolina House and Senate passed budgets on June 28. However, on Friday Gov. Nikki Haley vetoed 81 items in the $6.7 billion budget. “Now is not the time to return to our old ways of constituent-driven earmarks,” she wrote in a letter to House of Representative members to explain her vetoes.
South Carolina government is being funded through a continuing resolution.
The House and Senate will reconvene on Tuesday to vote on the vetoes. Both chambers would have to muster a two-thirds majority to override the governor’s vetoes.
On Tuesday Moody’s Investors Service hailed the South Carolina budget as a credit positive for the state’s local governments. After three years of cutting funding for basic education, the state increased per-pupil funding level by 7% to $2,012. The adopted budget also increased state funding for cities and counties by 16%.
Finally, the budget sets aside $300 million for the dredging of the Port of Charleston, the fourth busiest port in the eastern United States. The port’s current depth of 45 feet is inadequate for the large ships expected to come through the Panama Canal in 2014. The port makes a major economic and fiscal contribution to South Carolina.
On July 3 Moody’s noted states had become more timely in adopting their budgets in recent years compared to the years immediately following the peak of the financial crisis in 2008. In a report, it said there were four states without budgets in the beginning of fiscal 2009, five at the start of fiscal 2010, three at the beginning of fiscal 2011, one at the start of fiscal 2012 and none at the beginning of fiscal 2013. Moody’s treats states that have Legislature-approved budgets and interim spending plans as having adopted budgets even when the governors have not signed the budgets.
“The adoption of timely budgets in the last two cycles … reflects moderate improvement in state fiscal conditions, and the fact that states have largely avoided the political showdowns that marked the peak of the recession,” Moody’s said.
