Medicaid and Education Dominate State Spending | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Lindsay Marchello, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    Medicaid is the largest spending item of the roughly $53 billion flowing through state coffers this year, yet state policymakers have minimal control over the program.

    Joseph Coletti, a senior fellow at the John Locke Foundation, noted the major role of Medicaid and other health and human services spending during a presentation Monday, March 12 presentation on North Carolina's fiscal state. It was part of JLF's weekly Shaftesbury Society meeting.

    Coletti used a series of graphs and charts to explain the characteristics of the General Fund, other state revenues, and how money is appropriated each year.

    Coletti's work - based on data provided by the Office of State Budget and Management and the General Assembly's Fiscal Research Division - soon will become an online guide at JLF's website (johnlocke.org), which the public can use to make the detailed and often dense material easier to understand and simpler to track over time.

    The total General Fund budget for fiscal 2017-18 is about $23 billion, an increase of roughly 2.5 percent over the past year. It's the largest source of state funding. The State Highway Fund and State Highway Trust Fund generate a combined $3.7 billion. Adding federal tax dollars and other revenue sources, including college tuition and other grants, state spending totals roughly $53 billion annually.

    The federal government funds two-thirds of North Carolina's $14 billion Medicaid program, with $3.6 billion coming from state taxes.


    By looking at the numbers, Coletti determined the state's spending priorities are geared toward health, education, and welfare services. The majority of state funding goes to education with 57 percent of the General Fund, or $13 billion, allocated for K-12 education, community colleges, and the UNC system.

    Of that 57 percent, K-12 education receives 39 percent of appropriated state funds. The UNC systems gets 13 percent, and the community college system gets only 5 percent.

    "Flagship" campuses like the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University receive 40 percent or more of their funding from tuition, grants, and other unappropriated receipts. Meanwhile, lower-profile campuses, including Elizabeth City State University and the University of North Carolina-Asheville, rely more on state funding and have budgets of less than $100 million each.

    While a significant amount of funding goes to education, the Medicaid program is the most expensive. Coletti said Medicaid is the item to watch in future budget discussions because it will probably change.

    "For one it is the largest area of spending outside of education, and two it is a place where growth can happen," Coletti explained. Many Medicaid programs are tied to federal regulations, leaving state policymakers with few options to spend money more efficiently unless Washington bureaucrats grant waivers.

    Also, as Coletti noted, states seeking Medicaid flexibility typically have had to expand coverage to include more able-bodied, working adults, which would raise spending for the program even faster.

    As the state continues to grow, spending has remained relatively in line with population and inflation. At the same time, the rainy day fund, which includes funds set aside if spending commitments exceed tax collections, has reached an all time high of nearly $2 billion. The rainy day fund has exceeded 8 percent of General Fund appropriations - a goal lawmakers set roughly a decade ago.
Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




Attack School Violence, Not a Straw Man Carolina Journal, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics Is the UNC System Serious about Teacher Training Reform?


HbAD0

Latest Op-Ed & Politics

most voters think EU officials not doing a good job on illegal immigration
Be careful what you wish for, you may get it
Come from behind by GOP candidate is a blueprint to 2024
Biden spending and energy policies to blame
Tuberculosis carried by illegal invaders has already infected Texas cattle

HbAD1

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said this week that the only campaign promise President Joe Biden has delivered on as president is the complete dismantling of the U.S. southern border.
Hamas is reeling after losing two of their most cherished leaders on the same day: military commander Saleh al-Arouri, and Harvard President Claudine Gay.
President Joe Biden’s brother told the Internal Revenue Service that Hunter Biden told him he was in business with a “protege of President Xi,” referring to the leader of China, according to notes by an IRS investigator that were divulged during a congressional interview of Jim Biden.
Gov. Roy Cooper seeks a temporary restraining order to block a law changing the composition of the State Board of Elections.
X owner Elon Musk mocked a news segment from ABC News this week that promoted President Joe Biden’s talking points about the Democrat-led Senate’s failed border bill, which critics and many experts have said would make the situation on the border worse.
That’s the question Marguerite Roza of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab sought to answer in a recent webinar on the topic.

HbAD2

The University of Florida has fired all of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) employees and shut down its DEI office.

HbAD3

 
Back to Top