State Expenditures on Transportation Climb in 2019, Water Spending Drops

Industry News / Infrastructure Funding

November 22, 2019

State Expenditures on Transportation Climb in 2019, Water Spending Drops

Strong tax collections over the past several years have led to record state expenditures, with the total reaching $2.1 trillion in Fiscal Year 2019, up from $2.0 trillion in FY2018, according to the annual report from the National Association of State Budget Officers.

Transportation was the largest capital expenditure, climbing 9.3 percent in FY2019 to $73.1 billion, an annual increase of 9.3 percent. That comes on the heels of a 2.8 percent decline in state transportation spending in 2018. Since 2010, state transportation spending has averaged 4.9 percent annual growth.

In contrast, state spending on environmental projects, including water and wastewater, fell 5.6 percent in FY2019 to $6.4 billion. Since 2010, environmental spending has grown at an average annual 1.3 percent rate.

Other large FY2019 capital expenditure categories were Higher Education (up 2.4 percent to $12.1 billion), Corrections (up 5.7 percent to $1.2 billion), and All-Other—including parks hospitals, community development projects and information technology systems (up 13 percent to $17.2 billion).

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