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Governments
Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances
ANNUAL SURVEY OF STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCES
PURPOSE
To provide current estimates of state and local government financial activity. The United States Code, Title 13, authorizes this survey and provides for voluntary responses.
COVERAGE
All state and local governments in the U.S. Local governments include counties, municipalities, townships, special districts and school districts.
CONTENT
Data are obtained for revenue, expenditure, debt, and financial assets. Revenue data include taxes, charges, interest, and other earnings. Expenditure data include total by function (such as education and police protection), and by accounting category (such as current operations and capital outlays). Debt data include issuance, retirement, and amounts outstanding. Financial assets data included securities and other holdings, by type.
FREQUENCY
Data collection begins each October and continues for about 12 months. Reported data are for each government's annual accounting period that ends on or before June 30 of the survey year, with months covered varying by government. Survey has been conducted annually since 1952. Periodic surveys of government finances have been conducted since 1902. Survey has been conducted annually since 1952.
METHODS
A compilation of data from three sources: an enumeration of all 50 state governments, a survey of 13,000 selected non-school local governments (or of all 87,000 local governments for census years, years ending in “2” and “7”), and data from Federal agencies. Collection methods vary by state and type of government. On-site reviews of government records provide most data for state government agencies, and for the 48 largest and most complex county and municipal governments. By cooperative agreement, additional data for local governments in about 35 states are consolidated and submitted by a single state agency (usually in some form of electronic transmission). Data for some state agencies and about 7,500 local governments are obtained in a mail-out/mail-back survey.
Local governments are selected for the survey in non-census years by a size-based sampling procedure. The probability of a government's selection is based on its size of long-term debt, expenditure, population, or enrollment. All local governments above variable size cutoffs (such as a population of at least 50,000), or performing key functions (such as mass transit) are selected with certainty. A new sample is usually selected every 5 years, the most recent one being in fiscal year 2000. Also, for fiscal years 2001 and 2003 a national sample, a subset of the sample, was utilized.
PRODUCTS
State and local government finance reports and data files are available about 12 months after the survey year. Tables provide summary data on financial activities covering state and local, state-only, and local-only governments. Finance reports include revenue by source, expenditure by function, indebtedness, and financial holdings. In addition, downloadable files provide data in more detail, such as for individual governments.
USES
The Bureau of Economic Analysis uses the data as a primary source for updating its measures of the government sector of the National Income and Product Accounts. The Federal Reserve Board uses the data as a primary source for its Flow of Funds Accounts. State and local governments use the data to assess their financial condition, make peer-government comparisons, plan new programs, and develop financial policies.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Provides the most current, comprehensive and comparable source of data on state and local government finances.
RELATED PROGRAMS
State Government Tax Collections Survey
State and Local Government Public-Employee Retirement
System Survey
Local Government School System Finance Survey
Annual Public Employment Survey
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You are here: Economic Programs Overview
Governments
Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances
Last revised: Thursday, 27-Jul-2006 10:39:16 EDT
