Except for the very red, states, cities, and local gov'ts have generally increased their payrolls pretty significantly, both body count and total dollars,with occasional holds or slight reductions in tough times. Most states don't have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem. Usually pretty poor program management, as well - like a local pol who has a pet program (or twenty) and there aren't any real metrics applied to judge efficacy. If it sounds good, it continues, effective ROI or not.
Pretty gross duplication (usually) - every pizzant organization has their own budget, purchasing, HR folks, etc. The Feds took a swipe at the purchasing and budget redundancy a while back - state gov'ts, and county gov't, pretty much not. Blue states usually have politically significant teacher and public safety unions, and those are outright vampires on the general fund - poorer states may not throw $$$ and benefits at them, but in urban areas, those groups make out big, especially in relation to the general population, and even other state/county/city employees.
Anyway, people costs are the big drivers on expenditures, along with pension funding, and "transfer payments", sometimes buying votes with your $$$, and sometimes just misguided programs that hang-on long after it should be clear they are counter-productive. Big capital outlays, for construction, they usually go with bonds/borrowing, and debt service can get to be a large chunk, of course.
