Local Government Education Expenditures: 2017 Census of Governments Data

In FY 1972, when a large number of Baby Boomers were still in school, U.S. elementary and secondary school expenditures equaled 4.59% of U.S. residents’ personal income.  That fell to a low of 3.69% of income in FY 1984, after the Boomers exited and enrollment shrunk.  The figure increased to a non-recession (recessions depress income) high of 4.51% of income in FY 2004, when a large share of the Millennials were in school, before falling to around 3.9% of income each year from FY 2014 to FY 2017, after they exited.

New York State, however, has diverged from the pattern.  In New York City elementary and secondary school expenditures were around 5.0% of personal income each year from FY 2013 to FY 2017, actually higher than the 4.3% of personal income in 2004.  The rest of NY State averaged 6.4% of income in FY 2004, but was only modestly lower at just under 6.0% of personal income from FY 2015 to FY 2017.  New York’s elementary and secondary school expenditures were already high, compared with the rest of the country, in FY 2004, but the gap has increased since – despite an economy that has favored NY State in general, and New York City in particular, increasing the personal income that spending is being divided by.

New York’s public school expenditures are now at an extreme, even as the city and state face recession.  Rising pension and retiree health care expenditures, as a result of a long series of retroactive pension increases for teachers, are one key reason.  A high level of public school employment, despite falling enrollment, with the schools used as a job program and source of dues revenues, is another.

New York School Spending: Entitlement Feeds More Entitlement And It’s Never Enough

Over the past 25 years some types of Americans have become richer and richer, at the expense of others who have become poorer and poorer – to the point where average life expectancy is starting to fall.  One might have imagined that at some point those who have been taking more and more would conclude that enough is enough, feel obligated to do more in return, and become concerned about the circumstances of others who are less well off.  But that doesn’t seem to happen.  Not among the richest generations in U.S. history, those born from 1930 to 1957, who continue to be completely focused on increasing their own share of the take.  Not among the richest people, the top executives who sit on each other’s boards and vote each other higher and higher pay.  And who anointed themselves “the makers” and everyone else “the takers” within two years of having been bailed out by the federal government, even as “the takers” saw their standard of living plunge, and then demanded another round of tax cuts that mostly benefit themselves.

And not among New York’s unionized public employees, particularly those working in its public schools, who have become the most politically powerful – and selfish – of all self-interest groups at the state and local level here.  Power and selfishness seem to go together in part because no one dares to offend the powerful, by pointing out how much they have taken relative to everyone else, and the connection between others having less and them taking more. So they can continue to feel aggrieved, entitled, resentful, unobligated – and somehow demand even more without embarrassment.  There seems to be no end to it.  This post uses Census Bureau data to show how far it had gone, as of three years ago.

State and Local Government Revenues Other Than Taxes: Census Bureau Data for FY 2004 and FY 2014

As noted in my prior post on tax revenues New York State has more of them, at both the state and local level, as a percentage of its residents’ personal income than just about anyplace else. With a particularly high local tax burden in New York City. And New York’s state and local government tax revenues increased as a percent of its residents’ personal income from FY 2004 to FY 2014.

https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/state-and-local-taxes-in-fy-2004-and-2014-census-bureau-data/

In this post, the data shows that New York’s state and local government revenues other than taxes are also higher than the U.S. average, albeit not to the same extent. New York City’s local government charges for services, and its miscellaneous revenues, increased as a share of its residents’ from FY 2004 to FY 2014, while falling in the rest of the state. The State of New York’s federal aid revenues fell as a percent of state residents’ income during those years, and New York City’s state aid revenues fell as a share of city residents’ income as well. Demographic trends, with school enrollment falling, New York City becoming better off relative to the rest of the state, and New York State becoming better off relative to the rest of the country, may explain this.