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Where the Money Comes From, State Rural Initiatives. A Preliminary Report

In recent years rural issues and concerns have achieved renewed significance in the minds of state policy makers. Evidence continues to mount that policymakers see the need for programs to benefit rural communities and citizens, but in times of tight state budgets and calls for fiscal restraint, policy-makers wonder if they can afford new programs, projects or initiatives.
This paper represents a preliminary report on research in progress. It is intended to show how states are financing rural programs, projects and initiatives.

The attached inventory contains over 40 programs, projects or initiatives that are statewide in scope and that were initiated or significantly expanded in recent years. While we continue to refine and improve the inventory, a couple of conclusions are clear from the information presented.

(1) States are, in fact, responding to rural needs with new or expanded pro-grams, many of which are significant in scope and cost, and

(2) They are financing the efforts by every method known, including general revenue appropriations, creation of new revenue sources (taxes and fees), diversion or reallocation of current revenue streams, recombination of exist-ing programs, public bond issues, grants from philanthropic sources, grants or contracts from public sources (notably the federal government), and in rare instances, grants from private corporations.

There are important questions that are beyond the scope of this report: How well are the programs working? Are these programs the wisest and best uses of the funds for rural people? Are there other programs that would yield bet-ter results?

Full Story: http://www.rupri.org/ruralPolicy/publications/HowStatesFundInitiatives.pdf

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