Recent Legislatures in Texas have diverted some funding from state lockups to community-based supervision and diversions. Reallocating funding in this way continues to better protect the public safety and reduce crime, as a recent report details.

Gov. Jan Brewer has signed into law an $8.6 billion budget for next fiscal year that includes increases for certain education, public-safety and health programs but also puts $450 million into a "rainy-day fund."

During debates on taxes and spending, rural lawmakers begged to keep job-rich prisons operating.

Gov. Rick Snyder signed a 2013-14 state budget that doesn't address two of his major priorities - expanded Medicaid coverage and raising more than $1 billion in extra revenues for repair and maintenance of state roads and bridges.

Washington state agencies are working to identify which areas of government will need to cease operations if the Legislature fails to pass a budget over the next 18 days.

Recent Legislatures in Texas have diverted some funding from state lockups to community-based supervision and diversions. Reallocating funding in this way continues to better protect the public safety and reduce crime, as a recent report details.

It is well understood that the federal government must make spending cuts-these cuts will most likely drastically change the amount of federal dollars that are allocated to the states. Unfortunately for most states, dependence on federal funding has continually risen since 2008.

Was the slow recovery of the U.S. economy from the trough of the Great Recession anticipated? 

State governments pay on average 6.2 percent more per hour in wages and benefits, including pension benefits, than the private sector for the 22 major occupational categories that exist in both sectors. This combination of excessive wages, pensions and other benefits at the state and local levels is wreaking havoc on public finances in nearly every state.

This fiscal report card on the governors examines state budget actions since 2010 using statistical data to grade the governors on their taxing and spending records-governors who have cut taxes and spending the most receive the highest grades, while those who have increased taxes and spending the most receive the lowest grades.

State Budget Solutions recommends that state legislators take action in 2013 to resolve the serious state financial crises by changing their focus from inputs to outcomes by redesigning budgets from the ground up based on priorities and performance.

The ongoing state budget "crisis" strongly underscores the urgent need for North Carolina to adapt significant state budget reforms, including putting North Carolina taxpayers back in charge of approving new debt, and forcing legislators and state agencies at reasonable intervals to justify all spending, not just spending increases.

Prisons are supremely important, but they are also a supremely expensive government program, and thus prison systems must be held to the highest standards of accountability.

State policy makers across the country are putting research into action by passing legislation that requires their courts and corrections agencies to use evidence-based practices. over the past few years, a number of states have passed comprehensive corrections reform packages that require the use of risk/needs assessment and are projected to save taxpayers millions of dollars.

ALEC drafted model legislation for public transportation.