By Erica Michel
With the new fiscal year about to begin in just 25 days, 37 states have enacted FY 2015 budgets, 16 of which are part of two-year budgets that state legislatures enacted during the 2013 legislative session.
Budgets in five states are awaiting governors’ signatures. Ten states including California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are still working on their FY 2015 budgets before the June 30 deadline. Michigan is also working on a spending plan for next year, but the state does not begin a new fiscal year until Oct. 1.
While NCSL’s latest State Budget Update report released this spring shows that most state fiscal situations are stable that does not mean prioritizing spending has been easy this year.
In Virginia, lawmakers are still in a special session to decide on spending levels. The debate centers around whether to include Medicaid expansion in the budget, and how to remedy a potential revenue shortfall of nearly $1 billion over the next biennium.
At the end of May, the Illinois General Assembly passed an FY 2015 budget. If the legislature had not passed the budget by June 1, passage of the budget bill would have required a three-fifths majority rather than a simple majority.
For those states still working on their budgets, legislators will have one eye on the numbers and another on their calendars.
Erica Michel is a research analyst with NCSL's Fiscal Affairs program.
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