Contents

• Abstract
  
1. Survey Description
2. Statistical Reliability
3. Geographic Coverage
4. Collection of Statistics on Government Employment and Payroll
5. Federal Government Employment Data
• Filenames and Descriptions
  
1. Viewable Tables
2. Spreadsheet Files
3. Fixed-length ASCII Text Files
4. Individual Unit File
5. Directory Information File
6. Individual County Areas
• Record Layouts
  
1. Identification Files
2. Data Files



Abstract

Survey Description

The United States Census Bureau conducts an Annual Survey of Government employment, as authorized by law under Title 13, United States Code, Section 182. Alternatively, every five years, in years ending in a "2" or "7", a Census of Governments, including an Employment portion, is conducted under Title 13, Section 161. For both the Census and the annual surveys, the employment detail is equivalent. There was no survey for October 1996.

Census data for 1992, 1997, and 2002 are available for approximately 87,000 state and local governments. In non-Census years, a sample survey of approximately 11,000-13,000 local governments and all state governments is conducted and estimates are developed.

This survey provides data for March (October prior to 1997) on full-time and part-time employment, part-time employee hours worked, full-time equivalent employment, and payroll statistics by type of government (state, county, city, township, special district, and school district), and by governmental function (elementary and secondary education, higher education, police protection, fire protection, financial administration, other government administration, judicial and legal, highways, public welfare, solid waste management, sewerage, parks and recreation, health, hospitals, water supply, electric power, gas supply, transit, natural resources, correction, libraries, air transportation, water transport and terminals, other education, state liquor stores, social insurance administration, and housing and community development).

Employment and employees. Employment refers to all persons gainfully employed by and performing services for a government. Employees include all persons paid for personal services performed, including persons paid from Federally funded programs, paid elected or appointed officials, persons in a paid leave status, and persons paid on a per meeting, annual, semiannual, or quarterly basis. Unpaid officials, pensioners, persons whose work is performed on a fee basis, and contractors and their employees are excluded from the count of employees. Full-time employees are defined to include those persons whose hours of work represent full-time employment in their employer government; part-time employees are those persons who work less than the standard number of hours for full-time work in their employer government.

Full-time equivalent employment. A computed statistic representing the number of full-time employees that could have been employed if the reported number of hours worked by part-time employees had been worked by full-time employees. This statistic is calculated separately for each function of a government by dividing the "part-time hours paid" by the standard number of hours for full-time employees in the particular government and then adding the resulting quotient to the number of full-time employees.

Payroll amounts represent gross payrolls for the 1-month period of March (31 days). Prior to 1997, the reference month was October. The gross payroll includes all salaries, wages, fees, commissions, bonuses, or awards paid to employees during the pay period that included the date of March 12 (Prior to 1997 was October 12). Payroll amounts reported for a period other than 1 month were converted to represent an amount for the month of March (October). All payroll figures are in current whole dollars and have not been adjusted for inflation.

Conversion of a reported payroll to a payroll amount that would have been paid during a 31-day month is accomplished by multiplying the reported payroll by an appropriate factor. For example, a 2-week payroll is multiplied by 2.214, a 1-week payroll is multiplied by 4.429, and a twice-a-month payroll is multiplied by 2.

Average earnings. Average March (October prior to 1997) earnings for full-time employees can be calculated by dividing the full-time payroll by the number of full-time employees.

Employment and payrolls of governments are classified according to the major function or activity of the agency, office or other organizational entity in which the individual is employed.

For definitions of the functions and additional information about the Employment Survey refer to the following source: Chapter 5 of the "The Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual".

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Statistical Reliability

Data that are derived from a census are not subject to sampling variability, but data from the annual sample survey are subject to sampling error.

The statistics in this report that are based wholly or partly on data from the sample are apt to differ somewhat from the results of a survey covering all governments, but otherwise conducted using the same schedules and procedures. Estimates based on a sample survey are subject to sampling variability. The particular sample used is one of a large number of all possible samples of the same size that could have been selected using the same sample design. Each of the possible samples would yield somewhat different results.

The standard error is a measure of the variation among the estimates from all possible samples and thus is a measure of the precision with which an estimate from a particular sample approximates the average results of all possible samples.

Each viewable table contains a column that gives users the coefficients of variation that have been computed for these estimates. The coefficient of variation is the estimated standard error expressed as a percent of the estimated total or proportion.

State government employment and payroll data are not subject to sampling. Consequently, state-local aggregates shown here for individual states are more reliable (on a relative standard error basis) than the local government estimates they include. Estimates of major United States totals for local governments are subject to a computed sampling variability of less than one-half of 1 percent. State and local government totals are generally subject to sampling variability of less than 3 percent.

Whether the data come from a census or a sample, the data are also subject to nonsampling errors such as inaccuracies in classification, response, and processing. Efforts were made at all phases of collection, processing, and tabulation to minimize errors. However, the data are still subject to errors from estimating for missing data, errors from misreported data, errors from miscoding, and difficulties in identifying every unit that should be in the report. Every effort was made to keep such errors to a minimum through care in examining, editing, and tabulating the data reported by government officials.

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Nonresponse

When a local governments does not provide data requested in the Employment survey, totals are derived from:

1. The Bureau's recent annual surveys of government employment (surveys that request similar government employment and pay data for a sample of local governments) or the prior Census of Governments; or

2. Imputation procedures that use current data reported by like types of governments of similar size in the same state, or use secondary data sources.

In noncensus years, the response rate is about 84%. In census years, the response rate is approximately 80%.

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Geographic Coverage

State and local government data are provided for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Local governments include counties, municipalities, townships, special districts, and school districts.

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Collection of Statistics on Government Employment and Payroll

Data in these files are based on information obtained in the Annual Survey of Government Employment and Payroll. Federal Government data were compiled by Census Bureau staff from records of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Approximately one-half of the state governments provided data from central payroll records for all or most of their agencies/institutions. Data for agencies and institutions for the remaining state governments were obtained by mail canvass questionnaires. Local government data were generally requested by mail canvass questionnaires except for the following: Elementary and secondary school system data in Florida, North Carolina, North Dakota, and Washington were supplied by special arrangements with the state education agency in each of these states.

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Federal Government Employment Data

Federal Government employment data, full-time and part-time, are compiled by the Bureau of the Census from data collected by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in two separate surveys. Data by governmental function are for October from 1992 through 1995, and for March beginning in 1997. These data are based on the Monthly Report of Federal Civilian Employment (Standard Form 113A).

Employee counts are the on-board "head count" as of the end of the report period. The data collected for this survey capture all Federal civilian employees, including seasonal and intermittent employees, and employees on foreign assignments residing outside the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency are not included in any of the data presented by government function. Federal judges, members of Congress and their staffs, employees of the Congressional Budget Office, and elected (with the exception of the President) and appointed officials of the Executive Branch are included. Employees of non-appropriated funds of defense activities are not classified as Federal employees; therefore, they are excluded from both OPM surveys.

Three functions apply only to the Federal Government and have no counterpart at the state and local government levels: national defense and international relations, postal service, and space research and technology.

The payroll data are a total monthly payroll only. There is no detail available for full-time or part-time employee payrolls.

Federal employment data by state are collected biennially in even numbered years as of December 31st of the survey year. These data include total employment counts only. There is no detail for full-time employment, part-time employment or payrolls. Excluded from the data are seasonal and intermittent employees; employees on foreign assignments residing outside the 50 states and the District of Columbia; and employees of the Public Health Service`s Commissioned Corps, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Included in the total count of Federal employees by state, but not allocated by state, are: Federal judges and other employees of the Federal Courts; and employees of the Department of Justice`s Federal Bureau of Investigation who are employed outside the District of Columbia. Members of Congress and their staffs, employees of the Congressional Budget Office, and elected (with the exception of the President) and appointed officials of the Executive Branch working in the District of Columbia are included in employee counts for the District of Columbia.

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Filenames and Descriptions

Data files for state and local and local only government employment and payroll estimates are available, in addition to the viewable tables. These can be downloaded from the Internet site. The data represent the month of March (October prior to 1997), as explained previously. This section describes the files and the naming conventions.

Viewable Tables

Federal Tables: Two different tables of Federal Government data are available. Both are ASCII text files.

The first is Federal Employment by governmental function. This is available on an annual basis under the filename structure: YYFEDFUN.TXT, where YY = year of the data (i.e., 95 is for 1995).

Data for Federal Employment by state are available for each even-numbered year from 1990 to the present. The file names are 94FEDST.TXT (for data from 1990-1994) and 96FEDST.TXT (for data from 1996-present).

State Tables: These can be saved as ASCII text files. The file name structure is: YYSTXX.TXT

YY = year of data (i.e. 95 for 1995)
ST = state data
XX = the standard two character state abbreviation

Examples are:

95STMD.txt - 1995, state file for Maryland.
95STCT.txt -1995, state file for Connecticut.

State and Local Tables: These can be saved as ASCII text files. The file name structure is: YYSTLXX.TXT

YY = year of data (i.e. 95 for 1995)
STL = state and local data
XX = the standard two character state abbreviation

Examples are:

95STLMI.txt - 1995, state and local file for Michigan.
95STLMN.txt -1995, state and local file for Minnesota.

Local Tables: These can be saved as ASCII text files. The file name structure is: YYLOCXX.TXT

YY = year of data (i.e. 95 for 1995)
LOC = local data
XX = the standard two character state abbreviation

Examples are:

95LOCMI.txt - 1995 local data file for Michigan.
95LOCMN.txt -1995 local data file for Minnesota.

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Spreadsheet Files

In addition to the individual viewable tables described above, the tables are also available for downloading in a spreadsheet format. This is a Excel spreadsheet file (xls filename extension). It yields content identical to the viewable tables. In addition to total employees, the file includes numbers on full-time and part-time employees and their gross payroll.

State data: the file name structure is yystall.xls

yy = year of data (i.e. 95 for 1995)
stall = state data for all 50 states, including District of Columbia

State and Local data: the file name structure is yystlall.xls

yy = year of data (i.e. 95 for 1995)
stlall = state and local data for all 50 states, including District of Columbia

Local data: the file name structure is yylocall.xls

yy = year of data (i.e. 95 for 1995)
locall = local data for all 50 states, including District of Columbia

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Fixed-length ASCII Text Files

These are downloadable ASCII text files and are available for both the State and State and Local government levels. The files contain detailed employment and payroll amounts by government totals and item code detail. Each item code represents a governmental function category (police protection, hospitals, fire protection, and so forth). The levels of detail for each geographic state area include -- state, state plus local, and local as well as a U. S. total record.

State data files:
The filename structure of the state data file is yystate.dat
yy = year of data (i.e. 95 for 1995)

Along with the state data file, the state government identification file allows the user to translate the ID`s in the state data file to the state names.
The filename structure for the state identification file is yystate.id
yy = year of data (i.e. 95 for 1995)

Select Year:

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