Spending, Organized by Function
Every expenditure the state recorded in FY2025 — 1.7 million transactions — reorganized to answer what the budget itself cannot: not which agency spent the money, but what the money was spent on. All 960 object codes classified by written, auditable rules. An informal working analysis, with the rules and the underlying data published alongside it.
The Incremental State
One year, two budgets, and not a single agency cut. We matched the FY2024-25 and FY2025-26 appropriations acts line item by line item to measure how much of a "zero-based" budget is ever actually re-decided — and how much simply rides in from the year before.
The Federal Floor
Two out of every three dollars in South Carolina's $39.2 billion budget comes from somewhere other than state taxes. A map of the budget's architecture: federal matching funds, university revenues, dedicated streams, and the state-funded core where budget decisions bite directly.
The Match Trap
Where cutting one state dollar forfeits several federal ones: a line-item map of South Carolina's federal matching exposure, built from the 2,000+ appropriations lines that carry match requirements.