Governor Paterson’s 2010-11 Five-Year Financial Plan includes a helpful table summarizing the sources of state spending growth over the past 10 years.  The numbers highlight the favored status of education during a period that saw one of the greatest spending run-ups in New York’s history.

From fiscal year 1998-99 through 2008-09, the state budget grew at a compound annual rate of 5.6 percent — exactly double the compound annual rate of inflation during that period, which was 2.8 percent.   Personal income growth, the best barometer of the state’s economic growth, rose at only a 4.5 percent compound annual rate.

School aid was the single biggest contributor to overall spending growth.  In fact, regular school aid and STAR (the state School Tax Relief program, a school spending subsidy initiated in 1998-99) together accounted for about 40 percent of the total state operating funds spending increase of $33 billion over the ten-year period.  The K-12 piece of the pie also grew: the school aid and STAR share of state operating funds grew from 27 percent in 1998-99 to 32 percent in 2008-09.

Here’s that table (from page 26 of the financial plan report):