LANSING – Michigan’s total debt load has more than tripled in the past 20 years and the state now stands 20th in terms of total per capita debt, above the national average, a paper from the Senate Fiscal Agency said.
In 1990 the state stood at 36th among all the states in terms of per capita debt, the report said, but as the state’s total debt load grew its position also changed so that it is now above average in terms of per capita debt.
On September 30, 2008, the last day of the 2007-08 fiscal year, the state had a total of $23.2 billion in debt outstanding.
General obligation bonds totaled $1.477 billion, while non-general obligation bonds totaled $21.73 billion, the paper said.
In 1990, the state had total outstanding debt of $6.69 billion.
Total debt has grown by 10-fold since the 1979 fiscal year when it stood at $2.2 billion. In 30 years there has never been a year in which the total state debt has not grown, though there have been some years when general obligation debt declined.
Just since 1997, when total state debt stood at $10.75 billion, total debt has grown by some 220 percent, the paper said. Total personal income has grown by 140 percent during the same time while total state spending has grown by 120 percent.
The largest single share of the state’s non-general obligation debt is actually $5.3 billion in the Hospital Finance Authority. That debt is repaid by the hospitals themselves.
The Municipal Bond Authority accounts for $4.3 billion of the total, with that debt repaid by local governments.
The State Building Authority accounts for $3.37 billion of the total.
For the 2008-09 fiscal year, the state appropriated a total of $314.9 million in debt service payments, down from $316.8 million the year before. The state has paid as much as $368.5 million in debt service payments, during the 2000-01 fiscal year.
Massachusetts has the highest per capita debt of all the states while Tennessee has the lowest.
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