3. Budget History

3.3 Operating Appropriations & Non General Fund Operating Appropriations (Special Funds)

Appropriations to fund the day to day operations of state government come from the General Fund, federal grants, and a third category that does not have a generally accepted name. Here we call this category "special funds". Our definition of "special funds" is simply all appropriations from sources excluding the Unrestricted General Fund and federal grants. For more detail on the history of the special funds, see the section on Budget Shifting.

OPERATING APPROPRIATIONS

The first graph and table show total operations spending broken into 4 sources of funds--the Unrestricted General Fund, net special funds (all special funds with duplicated appropriations removed), federal grants, and duplicated appropriations (taken out of special fund appropriations).

Spending from own sources is the sum of the general fund and the net special funds. Adding in federal grants gives us actual spending. Finally, adding in duplicated spending (duplicated funds which are part of total special funds) gives total operations appropriations.

Operating spending has grown rapidly over the years, but with and without duplicated appropriations included. The growth can be traced to large increases in both federal funds and special funds. Spending from own sources has grown more slowly than actual spending (including spending funded by federal grants).

Adjusting for inflation, operating appropriations have been relatively stable during the 1990s. Rapid growth in spending from federal grants has offset a slow decline in spending from own sources.

Real per capita operating appropriations has trended downward during the 1990s, although the trend is less pronounced if duplicated appropriations are netted out. Real per capita spending from federal grants and special funds has continued to grow, but not enough to offset the decline in real per capita spending from the general fund.

THE SPECIAL FUNDS

There are a large number of special funds, so we have grouped them to better see both what they pay for and how they have been growing. Here are our categories, excluding duplicated funds.. (See the compete list of funds.)

1. public employee benefits management-Money for these funds comes from the earnings of the retirement accounts for government workers and is used to pay the management expenses of these accounts.
2. university funds-Tuition,dormitory fees, and other university revenues not paid by the general fund appear in these funds.
3. permanent fund asset management-Money for these funds comes from the earnings of the Permanent Fund and is used to pay the management expenses of the Fund as well as the costs of administering the dividend program.
4. transportation-International airport and marine highway revenues and operating expenditures are handled through these funds.
5. state corporations-The revenues and operating expenses of AHFC, AIDEA, and other state corportations (except the Alaska Railroad) are handled through these funds.
6. "always special fund" -These funds are required to be separate from the general fund for constitutional or other legal reasons.
7. remainder- This category contains all the other funds that do not fit into one of the other categories. It contains a large number of funds, most of which handle the revenues and expenditures of fee supported services like the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation commission. We have identified some of the activities as having formerly been funded through the general fund, some as new activities, and a residual category of small funds.

All of the special fund categories have been growing. The Remainder category experienced the most rapid growth during the 1990s but is still less than one-third of the total. (Also see the section on budget shifting.)

In inflation-adjusted dollars, growth was less pronounced.

But even removing the effects of inflation and population growth, the special funds part of the operating budget has increased, and each category has grown.

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