As state spending on education and human services continues to decrease, policy experts say nonprofits are going to need to gear up to meet the increased demand for human services.
An analysis of state budgets by the Fiscal Policy Center at Connecticut Voices for Children, a government watchdog group, shows that there”™s been a shift in priorities in terms of state spending over the past two decades.
While state expenditures have remained relatively flat as a percentage of personal income since 1992, previous debts and liabilities are taking up a larger portion of the state budget than in the past, said Wade Gibson, a CT Voices senior policy fellow.
As the cost of Medicaid, employee health care and pension obligations rise, it”™s coming at a fairly dramatic cost to human services and education, Gibson said June 27 in a presentation to Fairfield County Community Foundation (FCCF) members at Norwalk Community College.
“These past obligations are eating up more and more and more,” Gibson said. “The easiest thing to cut, it turns out, is human services and education ”¦ I don”™t think there”™s a conscious trade-off, but there”™s just not quite enough money to go around.”
As a percentage of general fund appropriations, education spending has decreased 5.7 percentage points since 1992, while human services spending has decreased 2.8 percentage points, Gibson said. To contrast, state spending on debt servicing and liabilities increased 4.9 percentage points over the same time period.
Traditionally the government has been the provider of economic opportunity for low- and middle-class residents, but its resources are increasingly thin, Gibson said.
“Increasing pressure on state and local budgets is leading to reductions in critical service programs, which have historically helped our county”™s most at-risk residents,” said Elaine Mintz, director of the FCCF”™s Center for Nonprofit Excellence. “As the flow of government funding dries up, there is a very real threat that many residents may fall through the cracks.”
For nonprofits, that means many will need to take on the challenge of increased demand for services at a time when the economy doesn”™t support growth, Mintz said.
Nonprofits will need to become better advocates for the work they are doing to attract more money and resources to support their work, she said. They”™ll need to scale up effective programs, replicate them to reach more people, and work with other nonprofits to increase their impact even further.
“Fairfield County nonprofits need to explore how their work helps to grow our economy in the state,” Mintz said. “The public needs to be more aware of these roles and the economic impact it has on both our region and our state.”
But while nonprofits may be able to pick up the state”™s slack, Gibson said he worries about the state”™s investment in its future, whether it”™s for high-quality education or children”™s health and dental work.
The state has made some progress in its recent pre-K education initiatives and the $1.5 billion Next Generation initiative at the University of Connecticut, Gibson said. But it needs to make more investments like that, he said.
“Fewer kids will be able to access opportunity and the state will have less ability to make that happen,” Gibson said. “Past decisions are crowding out those kinds of investments. We”™re finding every year it”™s getting harder and harder.”
