CAUTION: STATE SPENDING ANALYSIS AHEAD

Whenever reports are issued that rank how much states spend on various government programs, it is always interesting to see how those figures are interpreted.

For example, when a report shows per-capita state spending on elementary and high school students and ranks Missouri 36th in the nation, there are bound to be educators who say we would have better schools and improved academic performance if only we would spend more and become, say, the 12th-ranked state in this category.

These are the kind of statistics produced each year by Congressional Quarterly's analysis of government spending all 50 states. The analysis includes all spending from state and local sources. Federal spending isn't counted.

Care needs to be used when looking at these reports. Taking the per-capita spending on schools a step further, a good analyst would want to know what the per-pupil spending is -- Missouri ranks 38th -- and the spread between the state that spends the most and the one that spends the least. Is it thousands of dollars, or is it hundreds?

More than that, a full analysis would evaluate how well students perform in relation to the spending. For the most part, Missouri students do fairly well academically when you consider the high school graduation rate, the number of National Merit finalists and the number of Missouri students who are admitted to colleges and universities and who ultimately are hired for top-paying jobs.

In fact, other studies have shown that states that spend the most on public schools have the worst records when it comes to academic performance.

All of which tends to make may taxpayers wonder just how useful all these rankings really are.

They are useful to the extent that government spending is measured against what other states. But without taking into account the economies, major industries, work-force demographics and dozens of other factors, the raw spending numbers, state by state, don't mean a whole lot.

There are some other interesting statistics included in the Congressional Quarterly analysis:

Look at Missouri's ranking -- 49th -- on total spending by state and local government. Even being so close to the bottom of the rankings can't ease the fact that state and local governments in Missouri spent a total of $20.1 billion in 1997, the latest year for which figures are available. Of that, 62 percent of the spending was done in Jefferson City.

Another interesting statistic is the whopping growth in the number of government employees in Missouri over the five years from 1993 (89,000 government employees) through 1997 (100,000 government employees). This increase ranked Missouri near the top -- fifth -- of all states.

There are many ways to look at these statistics, but most taxpayers believe -- statistics or no statistics -- that governments at all levels spend far too much and could spend less and cut taxes, if they really wanted to, without seriously affecting the quality of governmental services.