By E.J. McMahon

State Funds spending would rise by about 8.6 percent under the $121 billion budget enacted by the Legislature on March 31 and April 1, according to preliminary estimates.  As shown below, this would rank among the top 10 budget increases in this category over the last 40 years.  Including federal funds, the total state budget would grow by 7.3 percent.  (An explanation of the different budget  measures can be found here.)

Pending release of a "comprehensive, cumulative report" on legislative additions to the governor's budget -- which, contrary to the requirements of a new "budget reform" law, was not placed on legislators' desks with the final budget bills -- preliminary figures released by Spitzer on March 30 indicate that roughly $1 billion will be added to the Executive Budget.  The deal also reduced the value of school property tax breaks by $200 million in 2007-08, leading to a net State Funds spending increase that will be about $800 million larger than what the governor original proposed.  

After adjusting for inflation, the spending hike in the 2007-08 budget would rank ninth among the 10 largest state-funded spending increases in New York since 1967-68, as shown in the table below.

Most of the estimated 2007-08 growth reflects Spitzer's own Executive Budget proposal.  A net legislative spending addition of $800 million would be relatively small by recent standards.

For those keeping score, a chart comparing proposed and enacted spending increases since 1995 can be found here.