If you want to get a sense of how bad state and local budgets are, there’s not a better resource out there right now than this article on Stateline.org. Among the things you’ll learn:

Worst recession for state and local governments in 50 years

• This is truly the worst recession in 50 years. State and local tax collections fell at rates unseen in the modern era. See chart at left.
• Delaware will join Nevada as the only two states to allow sports betting.
• 35 states cut higher education spending or raised tuition.
• California, Michigan, and Utah no longer provide dental coverage to low-income adults.
• California will not have state money for new textbooks for the next five years.
• California will reduce its school year by five days.
• Illinois will reduce the number of kids eligible for preschool by 10,000.
• Hawaii cut 35 percent of its budget for school sports.
• Tennessee inmates will be eating less milk and milk because of budget cuts to the state department of corrections.
• Michigan is attempting to import prisoners in order to maximize space usage.
• Idaho reduced year-to-year education spending for the first time ever.

Other than the bleak nature of these cuts (and I didn’t even mention routine mechanisms like furloughs and tax and service fee increases), there are a couple takeaways. One, the recession is not hitting states evenly. North Dakota and Montana 2010 budgets are in the black, five states were able to cut taxes, 14 states increased health care coverage for children, and nine states expanded preschool programs. Two, the states are, by and large, enacting large increases in service fees. These large, one-time increases are bad policy and more states should consider adopting regular increases indexed to inflation or some other standard metric. That would lead to smoother revenue collection, more predictable policies, and more political capital to spend on other areas.