The Patrick Administration deserves great credit for its efforts to make its budget as transparent as possible. Nonetheless, a 46 billion dollar spending program is intrinsically complex, so here are answers to a few questions that I found myself asking as I worked through the presentation.
How big is the budget? The financial statement section shows proposed spending for FY2015 at $36.374 billion. The executive overview of government function, however, shows proposed spending in 11 functions totaling $46.219 billion.
The difference between the two views is that the financial statement only includes spending subject to budgetary appropriation, while the overview covers all spending. The program category budget detail page and its subsidiary pages break down all spending by funding source, but I located no functional summary by funding source. Below is a table, derived by scraping those detail pages into excel, which summarizes spending by functional area by funding source.
Funding sources in the Governor's FY2015 Functional Budget
| FY2015 Budget (H2) | Budgetary Appropriations | Capital | Federal Grant Spending | Trust Spending | Total All Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Functions | $36,403,495,296 | $4,166,950,568 | $1,899,770,382 | $3,741,329,835 | $46,211,546,092 |
| Central Administration and Operations | $3,078,293,737 | $254,520,753 | $222,169 | $1,956,862,928 | $5,289,899,588 |
| Civic Support and Public Engagement | $1,169,357,111 | $17,322,846 | $5,048,547 | $141,944,171 | $1,333,672,676 |
| Education | $6,715,147,704 | $302,116,156 | $897,196,004 | $36,572,546 | $7,951,032,412 |
| Energy and Environment | $290,196,720 | $328,008,076 | $43,776,627 | $95,529,208 | $757,510,633 |
| Health Coverage Related Services | $16,223,402,534 | $69,476,671 | $- | $1,008,815,610 | $17,301,694,815 |
| Health and Social Services | $5,295,056,830 | $52,929,047 | $490,198,161 | $49,476,656 | $5,887,660,698 |
| Housing and Economic Development | $480,500,393 | $439,665,000 | $71,813,990 | $16,651,210 | $1,008,630,591 |
| Judicial and Legal Services | $946,710,876 | $71,472,313 | $150,543 | $- | $1,018,333,732 |
| Labor and Workforce Development | $69,718,389 | $1,000,000 | $230,786,733 | $108,925,018 | $410,430,139 |
| Public Safety | $1,595,334,933 | $67,760,641 | $101,622,935 | $7,829,380 | $1,772,547,887 |
| Transportation | $539,776,069 | $2,562,679,065 | $58,954,673 | $318,723,108 | $3,480,132,921 |
The total shown in the chart for Budgetary Appropriations across all functions ($36.403 billion) does foot to the detail in the program detail, but is slightly above the amount shown in the financial statement for FY15 ($36.374 billion). The detail also differs from the financial statement for FY14 — the detail is lower by $67 million, so that the percentage growth from 14 to 15 shows as 5.2%, while the budget highlights indicate an increase of 4.9%, consistent with the financial statements.
Which are the largest functional categories in each funding source? The chart below is the same as the chart above, but shows each spending by function as a percent of total spending by funding source.
Funding sources in the Governor's FY2015 Functional Budget -- Functions as % of Total from Funding Source
| Budgetary Appropriations | Capital | Federal Grant Spending | Trust Spending | Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Functions | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Central Administration and Operations | 8.5% | 6.1% | 0.0% | 52.3% | 11.4% |
| Civic Support and Public Engagement | 3.2% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 3.8% | 2.9% |
| Education | 18.4% | 7.3% | 47.2% | 1.0% | 17.2% |
| Energy and Environment | 0.8% | 7.9% | 2.3% | 2.6% | 1.6% |
| Health Coverage Related Services | 44.6% | 1.7% | 0.0% | 27.0% | 37.4% |
| Health and Social Services | 14.5% | 1.3% | 25.8% | 1.3% | 12.7% |
| Housing and Economic Development | 1.3% | 10.6% | 3.8% | 0.4% | 2.2% |
| Judicial and Legal Services | 2.6% | 1.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.2% |
| Labor and Workforce Development | 0.2% | 0.0% | 12.1% | 2.9% | 0.9% |
| Public Safety | 4.4% | 1.6% | 5.3% | 0.2% | 3.8% |
| Transportation | 1.5% | 61.5% | 3.1% | 8.5% | 7.5% |
Note: The Governor does present a layered drill-down for budgetary appropriations , but does not do so by function or for the other funding sources. On his program budget report page, he offers a “Dashboard” (accessible in the sidebar under “Budget Recommendations”), which offers a drill-down within function, but does not summarize shares or change.
Which functional categories grow most rapidly in FY2015? This is information is all in the program detail referenced above, but here is the summary I’d want when seeking an overview:
Funding sources in the Governor's FY2015 Functional Budget -- % Change From FY14 Projected
| % Change from FY2014 Projected to FY2015 H2 | Budgetary Appropriations | Capital | Federal Grant Spending | Trust Spending | Totals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Functions | 5.2% | 1.8% | -4.0% | -2.8% | 3.8% |
| Central Administration and Operations | 4.7% | -13.7% | 0.0% | -0.8% | 1.6% |
| Civic Support and Public Engagement | -1.5% | -32.4% | 0.3% | 2.6% | -1.7% |
| Education | 2.7% | 8.7% | -2.3% | 2.7% | 2.4% |
| Energy and Environment | 4.7% | 12.5% | -3.7% | -19.7% | 3.3% |
| Health Coverage Related Services | 7.5% | -26.6% | n/a | -3.4% | 6.6% |
| Health and Social Services | 4.7% | -7.2% | -0.6% | 36.7% | 4.3% |
| Housing and Economic Development | -4.4% | -10.4% | 0.0% | -46.8% | -8.0% |
| Judicial and Legal Services | 2.6% | 158.2% | 0.0% | n/a | 7.2% |
| Labor and Workforce Development | -9.4% | -13.0% | -5.3% | -1.3% | -5.0% |
| Public Safety | -0.8% | -52.2% | -0.5% | 2.8% | -4.7% |
| Transportation | 31.3% | 7.2% | -40.3% | -9.8% | 7.0% |
Which functional categories account for most of the growth in FY2015. The chart below, again working from from the same program detail referenced above, shows the amount of change in each function as a percent of the total amount of change for each funding source. Positive and negative changes do add up to plus or minus 100% for each funding source.
Funding sources in the Governor's FY2015 Functional Budget -- % OF TOTAL Change From FY14 Projected
| % of Change from FY2014 Projected to FY2015 H2 | Budgetary Appropriations | Capital | Federal Grant Spending | Trust Spending | Totals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Functions | 100.0% | 100.0% | -100.0% | -100.0% | 100.0% |
| Central Administration and Operations | 7.7% | -54.9% | 0.0% | -14.0% | 4.9% |
| Civic Support and Public Engagement | -1.0% | -11.3% | 0.0% | 3.4% | -1.4% |
| Education | 10.0% | 33.0% | -27.3% | 0.9% | 10.9% |
| Energy and Environment | 0.7% | 49.5% | -2.1% | -22.0% | 1.5% |
| Health Coverage Related Services | 63.1% | -34.1% | 0.0% | -33.4% | 63.8% |
| Health and Social Services | 13.3% | -5.6% | -3.7% | 12.4% | 14.6% |
| Housing and Economic Development | -1.2% | -69.4% | 0.0% | -13.7% | -5.3% |
| Judicial and Legal Services | 1.4% | 59.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.1% |
| Labor and Workforce Development | -0.4% | -0.2% | -16.2% | -1.4% | -1.3% |
| Public Safety | -0.8% | -100.4% | -0.6% | 0.2% | -5.2% |
| Transportation | 7.2% | 234.0% | -50.2% | -32.4% | 13.5% |
Click here to download the spreadsheet from which these tables were derived
For discussion of the priorities reflected in the budget, please see this recent post.