Now Available
Our annual report on state fiscal health. Debt among the states improved slightly. Going from $1.2 trillion down to $938.6 billion.
What happened?
How did your state do? Read the full report below.
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-state-of-the-states-2023
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This year's report found that 31 states did not have enough money to pay all of their bills.
To encourage the publication of transparent and accurate government financial information, Truth in Accounting has created a transparency score for financial reporting by the states.
PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Truth in Accounting's twelfth annual Financial State of the States report, a nationwide analysis of the most recent state government financial information.
Includes “Both PERF and TRF are hybrid plans in which both the employer and member have funds at risk. … This concept has been part of the Indiana system for a generation. … TRF’s pre-1996 fund is a pay-as-you-go plan that has been in place since 1921. … Typically, in pay-as-you-go plans, no funds are set aside today to fund projected benefits years in the future. Instead, these plans are funded in the year the benefit payment is provided to the member. ”
By Jeanie Lindsay, includes “A new study says school choice options in Indiana have saved the state millions in education spending. But researchers say the cost-savings come as the state spends less on education than it did more than a decade ago.”
By Kaitlin Lange and Arika Herron, includes “In their final hours at the Indiana Statehouse Thursday, lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the two-year state budget filled with one-time spending and an unexpected amount of new education dollars."
Editorial, includes “Ten years ago in these columns, we hailed Indiana for its leadership in establishing one of America’s most ambitious school voucher programs. On Thursday the Indiana Legislature built on that achievement by approving a budget that will take the program to 48,000 students a year from about 37,000.”
By Brandon Smith, includes “Gov. Eric Holcomb said the state’s new, $37 billion state budget will be “transformational” for Indiana’s future. The final budget proposal unveiled Tuesday uses a combination of state tax revenues and money from the latest federal COVID-19 relief package.”
We’ve updated our Data-Z website to include the latest Census population data through 2020. The link above takes you to a “pretty picture
When it comes to allowing taxpayers to easily analyze state finances, Indiana is one of the best states in the nation, according to a report released Tuesday by Truth in Accounting.
The 2020 Financial State of the States report surveys the fiscal health of the 50 states prior to the coronavirus pandemic. This data is released today by Truth in Accounting (TIA), a think tank that analyzes government financial reporting.
While we hear more about the federal and state governments for the laws they pass and policy decisions they make, it is the local governments that are responsible for public education, law enforcement, road maintenance, parks, public health programs and more. One good way for people to get a solid understanding of the county government’s activities is to look at its budget.
How large could the shortfall in state government general revenues be, amidst the coronavirus and related crises?
It is not surprising an Illinois politician finally put in writing what economists and financial watchdogs have been warning for years: That elected officials who failed to take seriously decades of fiscal warning bells in this state eventually would seek a bailout from the federal government.
At the Bartholomew County Council work session on Monday evening, Sheriff’s Merit Board president Susan Fye and OneAmerica actuary Stan Brown presented updated benefits package proposals for the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) to the board.
ObamaCare turns 10 next month, and one piece of its legacy was a nationwide surrender on controlling health-care costs. The law has accelerated consolidation among insurers and providers, who have in turn concealed prices and increased costs. Indiana is trying to change that.
This week the Indiana Senate passed House Bill 1007, which would eliminate almost $300 million in state debt and save Hoosier taxpayers $135 million by avoiding future interest payments. This debt relief comes in the form of cash funding infrastructure projects which were already approved in the most recent state budget. We originally planned to pay for these projects with bonds, but after a one-time windfall due to federal tax changes, the state finds itself with a large enough surplus to fund these projects independently, instead of indebting itself.