State officials across the nation are struggling to come to terms with the largest state budget shortfall in 50 years. State budget deficits are expected to run between 13 and 18 percent of state expenditures. Budgets for health care, education, and essential social services stand in jeopardy while the latest National Association of State Budget Officers’ report estimates that corrections spending (one of the fastest-growing line items during the 1990s) now consumes one in every fourteen general fund dollars.
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