State lawmakers will be focused next year on addressing shrinking revenues, workforce needs, and how best to protect against and deploy artificial intelligence, Tim Storey, CEO of the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Monday.
Education and tech privacy round out the leading issues the NCSL foresees for the next legislative sessions.
In a call with reporters, Storey said some of these issues also received a lot of attention in 2024, and that policy trends “tend to percolate for multiple years in a row.”
“The No. 1 issue … is, of course, what’s going to happen with state budgets,” a perennial issue, Storey said.
Unlike the federal government, state governments are required to balance their budget each year and, therefore, become a focal point in every legislative session. But this year, states will have less money to work with, including federal government aid, as pandemic-era funding runs out.
Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska and Washington are among the states that will need to draw down savings, cut spending, or raise revenue to balance their budgets next year.
Read more: Lawmakers grapple with post-Covid budget deficits
Storey said most states have cut taxes in recent years.
“The theme will be tighter budgets, far more scrutiny, less money for new programs, less money to solve problems,” Storey said.
States will also be looking to lure workers to fill jobs in the public and private sectors in almost every field, including education, child care, senior care, law enforcement and prisons.
“You still have well over 1.7 job openings for every one person that’s seeking a job,” Storey said. “So there continues to be a very tight labor market, which affects not just the private sector who are trying to hold their costs down, but also the governments — the state governments — who are trying to find people to fill nursing home roles and prison officials and prison employees.”
At least a half dozen bills were introduced this year to help migrants find work by changing licensure requirements. Bills in Georgia, Wisconsin and Indiana would alter licensing laws to make it easier for foreign-trained doctors and nurses to practice in those states. A Maryland bill would eliminate proof-of-citizenship requirements for emergency medical workers.
Artificial intelligence will continue to be an issue of great interest to lawmakers after a year when more AI-related bills were introduced than ever before. The NCSL expects more states to enact legislation next session after previously passing bills to study the issue. Storey said “actual legislation” will likely be “passed in more than just one or two states on AI.”
Read more: States maintain lead on AI regulation in Trump era
States will also continue to legislate on online privacy and security, including on social media. Storey said protecting kids will “continue to be a hot button conversation in state capitals around the country.”
That includes Texas, where a lawmaker has already proposed a bill for next year that would prohibit minors from accessing artificial intelligence tools that generate sexually explicit images and videos.
States will continue to focus on housing, as rents and the cost of living have surged around the country. That includes efforts to address squatting, with laws to crack down on it enacted this year in Florida and New York.
Low reading and math scores tied to learning loss during the Covid-19 will keep the spotlight on education, Storey said.
And how some of President-elect Trump’s policy proposals, such as mass deportation and tariffs, affect the economy will be a top storyline for states, Storey said. Both issues could be detrimental to state budgets and exacerbate workforce shortages,
“I know legislators are talking about it on both sides of the aisle,” Storey said. “There’s a whole lot of rhetoric right now, and some speculation as to the impacts of things like tariffs and deportations.”
“There’s a high cognition that this change at the federal level could have a substantial, major impact in the states,” he said.