Federal, State, and Local Governments Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual Chapter 4 - Functional Classification of Government Activities |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Contents and Abstract:
Expenditure Code Definition Pages Viewed as a group, governments are multi-functional organizations, providing a wide range of services to a broad group of people. In recognition of this diversity, the Census Bureau has created a detailed classification scheme for reporting government activities according to their purpose. To illustrate the functional interrelationship among different types of data, Table 4-1 provides a cross-classification of revenue, expenditure, and debt codes by function. Note that not every finance code is shown in this table; some codes are not functional per se (e.g., taxes and insurance trust data) while others are too broad to list (e.g., "all other" codes). Also included in this chapter are two charts providing listings of all current function codes. Chart 4-A arranges these codes according to the functional groupings used for publication purposes ("Education," "Social Insurance and Income Maintenance," etc.) while Chart 4-B lists them in numerical order (01, 02, 03,etc.). Completing this chapter are the Expenditure Code Definition Pages that provide detailed, one-page definitions of each function, including coverage of data collection information.
4.1 BackgroundCurrently, the Census Bureau has identified nearly 70 major functions of government, several of which are used solely for the Federal Government. Others apply solely to state government data while a few pertain only to local government activities. Each of these functions falls into one of the four sectors of government described in Chapter 3: General Government, Liquor Stores, Utilities, and Insurance Trust. No function, however, spans more than one sector of government.This classification schema is so pervasive that virtually all data on governments collected by the Bureau is categorized in part along functional lines. The few activities not classified by function are:
4.2 Primary vs Secondary FunctionGovernment agencies often provide services that encompass more than one function. For instance, airports may have their own police force, schools their own libraries, and large correctional institutions their own water supply or sewerage systems.In these instances, the Census Bureau categorizes the entire activity according to its primary function rather than breaking it down into its smaller component or secondary parts. Using the examples cited above, the secondary activities would be classified along with their primary function--i.e., air transportation, education, and corrections, respectively.
4.21 Public InstitutionsPublic institutions comprise such facilities as hospitals, colleges and universities, adult and juvenile correctional facilities, welfare homes, and special schools for the handicapped.The functional classification of these institutions for Census Bureau purposes is not done on an ad hoc basis, however. Rather, a separate unit within Governments Division identifies and categorizes them. For state and large local governments, these findings are reported in "Checklists of Institutions for Governments Division Surveys." Compilers of finance and employment data use these checklists to assign institutions to their proper function.
4.3 Data Crossing Functional LinesThe boundaries created by this classification system are not so rigid that they prevent activities from crossing functional lines. To illustrate, the receipt of Federal aid for medical care assistance to the needy (Medicaid) is classified as a public welfare intergovernmental revenue. These money often are spent, however, by public hospitals. By definition, all outlays of a public hospital are classified at a hospital function, so the transaction necessarily crosses over into the hospital category on the expenditure side. Payments to private vendors for medical care, in contrast, remain within the public welfare function.
4.4 Relation to Federal and State Government ProgramsThese functions, created for general statistical purposes, cannot be equated with any specific Federal or state government program. They are generally broader than even the most widely-based Federal or state programs. Major Federal and state programs may even cross over into more than one Census Bureau function, as illustrated above with the Medicaid program.Instead, these functions represent broad activities of govern- ments that have remained virtually unchanged for years, thereby preserving their usefulness for analytical purposes even while specific Federal and state programs expand or contract.
4.5 Unique Special District Function CodesSome, but not all, of the functional categories described in this chapter are used to classify not only government finances and employment, but also government organization. In conjunction with the regular function codes, the organization phase employs a set of function codes expressly for special district governments. These codes are limited to the organization area because, even though numerous special districts may exist for them (e.g., the 1,655 cemetery districts classified during the 1997 Census of Governments), their finances or employment are too small, they are concentrated in just a few states, or their activities are too narrow.Finance and employment data for special district organization codes are converted into the regular functions for reporting purposes, as shown by the table below.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Special Districts - Standard Function Code | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Governments Division Created: November 16 2000 Last revised: February 21 2001
|