How have California's financial priorities evolved over the last 30 years? Explore above to see the trends in California expenditures and number of employees. You can break the expenditures down by agency and by expense type, and control for inflation, growing population and growing personal incomes in California. You can break the employees down by agency and control for the growing population. You can also focus on a specific span of years.

Note: Expenditures include all funds (state, federal, and all bonds).

Note: Years refer to the first calendar year in a fiscal year (2004 refers to the 2004-05 budget). Numbers reported for 2010-11 and later are estimates.

Instructions: Check the boxes in the upper right hand corner to include and exclude different funds. Use the other drop down menus on the right hand side to select whether to see data for the whole state government or specific agencies.

*Selecting the metrics:
Per Capita shows the tax collected per resident of California for each year (averaging across all residents including children).

Per $100 of Income shows the average tax collected per $100 of a person's income (this is calculated by dividing total tax collected by
total personal income in the state). This places CA finances in the context of the increasing wealth of the state's residents over time.

Sources:

(1) Historical finance numbers are from the California Department of Finance: California Budget Information website, which can be accessed at http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/information/#SummarySchedules (select Chart C-1: Program Expenditures by Fund), or go to http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/information/documents/CHART-C1.pdf to access it directly.

(2) Data on inflation was found using the CPI figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website, found at ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt. June 2011 was used as the baseline month and year to calculate inflation.

(3) Population data is from the Department of Finance: Demographic Research Data Files website, located at http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/data/. Specifically, Population data for 1976-1989 were found at:

State of California, Department of Finance, Race/Ethnic Population with Age and Sex Detail, 1970–1989. Sacramento, CA, December 1998. http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/data/race-ethnic/1970-89/

Population data for 1990-1999 were found at:

State of California, Department of Finance, Race/Ethnic Population with Age and Sex Detail, 1990–1999. Sacramento, CA, Revised May 2009. http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/data/race-ethnic/1990-99/

Population data for 2000-2008 were found at:
State of California, Department of Finance, E-3 Race / Ethnic Population Estimates with Age and Sex Detail, 2000–2008. Sacramento, CA, June 2010. http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/data/e-3/.

(4) Personal income data were found in the Governor's 2012-3 Proposed Budget summary, schedule 6, available here: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/BudgetSummary/SCD/32284097.html