Seasons of spending.

In the past 25 years, some budget categories have grown, others have declined, and the technology has improved. But the main ingredients are just the same as they always were.

State budget recipes use pretty basic stuff - mostly meat and potatoes, with a few plums thrown in. State policies and politics, of course, make every budget session different. A smorgasbord of familiar spending decisions is laid out along with a dessert tray of new proposals.

Lawmakers balance the palatability of tax cuts and new spending against fundamental state financing responsibilities in the process of budget creation. In this process, what are the main ingredients? What determines the size of the pieces? Who decides how the budget pie should be cut? Seasoned legislators and fiscal directors watching the budget process observe that at least some of the answers have changed over the past 25 years.

WHAT'S IN THE PIE?

Education, health and welfare, corrections and transportation are a state budget's major ingredients, with education the largest piece. Spending on education has grown significantly even though its portion of the state budget pie has declined over 25 years, according to the Census Bureau. New cost pressures include early childhood education, all-day kindergarten, smaller classes, before- and after-school care, bilingual and special needs education, and new technology, as well as court decisions on equality and adequacy.

Census figures also show that corrections costs, though a relatively small part of overall state spending, have grown steadily over the past 25 years. Societal pressures to crack down on crime with mandatory and longer sentences have led to burgeoning prison populations and the need for new prison construction.

"The most notable change in spending priorities is how much more spending is in the crime area," observes Minnesota Senate President Allan Spear, first elected in 1972. Concern about a rising crime rate (that has now leveled off) also is reflected in increased spending on crime prevention efforts such as early childhood programs.

Elizabeth Hill, California's nonpartisan legislative analyst, has worked for the Legislature since 1976. She confirms that when she began, corrections was 3 percent of the state's general fund budget; now it's 8 percent. California's 12 correctional institutions have grown to 33, with inmate populations increasing from 24,000 to 170,000. And changing social conditions and expectations definitely have increased other legislative responsibilities, says Hill. For example, AIDS wasn't an issue 25 years ago, and matters like toxins and air quality now require greater legislative attention and money.

Gary Olson, director of Michigan's Senate Fiscal Agency, has been with the Legislature for 22 years. He suggests that spending on corrections and health has increased at the expense of general government programs and some educational spending. He also believes that medical spending will continue to grow as the general population and the prison population age.

Ohio Speaker Jo Ann Davidson, now in her 10th term, confirms that budget pressures on education have come from competing growth in health care and Medicaid costs, along with the explosion in corrections budgets. And, she says, changing social conditions clearly affect spending priorities: Ohio's department of drug and alcohol abuse didn't exist 25 years ago. Even so, "education is still No. 1 in most people's minds," she says.

Senator Spear agrees that education is a top priority. "Ultimately, though, as the population ages, spending on education will decrease, and more money will go to nursing homes." To help deal with this trend, states like Minnesota and Ohio have pilot programs that encourage state employees to purchase long-term care insurance to help control future medical costs. It's not yet clear whether they'll have a noticeable effect.

Senator Spear identifies another change in spending emphasis: People now talk less about roads and bridges and more about transportation. Census data support his conclusion. Nationwide, highway costs as a percentage of state spending declined from 12 percent in 1976 to 7 percent in 1997. A more comprehensive approach to transportation is also apparent in California, says Hill, where all gasoline tax money was earmarked for highways until 1977, when the Legislature began to take a broader view of transportation funding in its appropriations process. In fact, nearly all states now have transportation rather than highway departments, with responsibilities that range from bike paths to airports to public transit.

MORE COOKS IN THE KITCHEN

It's clear that a growing number of people, both legislators and staff, have a role in today's budget process. "A handful of people made the budget decisions 25 years ago. In fact, just prior to my election, those decisions were made behind closed doors. Now we have involved every member of the Senate, either on a funding division or a tax committee," says Spear. He considers this a positive trend, even though decision making is messier because more people participate in the give-and-take.

Term limits add spice to the mix, since they are likely to increase turnover on fiscal committees, and members will be less experienced. California's Hill points out that because of term limits, relative newcomers are chairing budget committees. Before, they wouldn't have been on a fiscal committee until they had served in the Legislature for some time.

As the most experienced legislators are term-limited out, states need good, solid people - both legislators and staff - with experience in the budgeting process and budget priorities, notes Speaker Davidson.

In fact, legislators generally are better informed about budget matters today, because of the growth and increased professionalism of legislative fiscal staff, says Olson. A fundamental change in Michigan has been that legislative fiscal staff are now expected to develop alternatives to the governor's budget requests. Elizabeth Hill also has seen changes in the role and size of her state's fiscal staffs. California, like some other states, has fiscal staff for the majority and the minority, as well as fiscal experts for leadership and the fiscal committees. These staffers must meet new legislators' additional needs for information and analysis.

FEAST AND FAMINE

Basic budget decisions to raise or lower spending or maintain current services are the same everywhere, even though results vary. Many states undertake changes in the budget process to help make spending choices easier, although there's no persuasive evidence that they make much difference.

One such effort is Ohio's current experiment with an education funding bill separate from the main budget. "Frankly," says Speaker Davidson,"I feel that it [the separate bill] lets people concentrate more."

Michigan's appropriations process is more focused on budget programs and program outcomes than on the spending details of 25 years ago when, as Olson points out, the Legislature gave greatest attention to details such as spending for salaries and wages.

Tough spending decisions are always there, even as budgets rise from deficit to surplus and down again. What to do when times are good? "Surpluses offer us a unique opportunity to do some long-range infrastructure improvements on school buildings, sewage treatment - lots of things that need doing," says Senator Spear.

What about the lean times? Olson points out that deficits provide the opportunity to carefully review existing programs and reduce or eliminate wasteful ones. He says this has been the case in Michigan.

State budgets are bigger today, but new technology (read computers) has provided legislatures with the ability to analyze them far more extensively than 25 years ago. Staff has to spend less time on basic budget preparation matters, says Olson, making possible deeper exploration of issues.

Hill agrees, noting that technology has enabled more independent analysis of caseload and expenditure data as well as economic analysis and estimates of effects on local governments and school districts.

Speaker Davidson says computers may have made internal work easier for staff in providing information, but she thinks it might actually have been easier to pass a K-12 budget bill before computers. Now that every legislator has a printout showing how much the bill will affect each school district, it's possible that parochialism and competition increase.

LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

So have the past 25 years brought anything new to the budget story? Yes and no.

More legislators are involved in budget decision making. Concern about results may be replacing a narrower focus on line items. And legislators want to be able to get budget-related information fast. Fortunately, legislative fiscal staff members are more numerous and more professional and it's easier to find out what's happening in other states, thanks to on-line services. Many states have a wealth of budget information available to the public and lawmakers electronically.

But basic budget ingredients have changed very little, in spite of shifts in societal priorities. And they are unlikely to change much in the future. Education, corrections, welfare, health and transportation will continue to dominate state budget debates. If there are changes, they'll come slowly, as society's needs change.

State budgets have certainly grown in 25 years, and will no doubt continue to do so. Tom Covington, North Carolina's longtime director of legislative fiscal research, compares state spending to the kudzu vine - the more you try to cut it down and prune it, the more it grows.

Judy Zelio tracks tax and spending issues for NCSL.