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Help for Select Units

Overview

The DQS can display data in five formats:

  • Total: In thousands of dollars (default).
  • Per Capita: Divided by mid-year population, in dollars
  • Fraction of Personal Income: Divided by personal income
  • Fraction of General Revenues: Divided by general revenues
  • Fraction of Total Expenditures: Divided by total expenditures

Notes for Use

Select option to view data. Selecting Fraction of General Revenue and Fraction of Total Expenditure may yield decimals greater than 1, depending on the variable selected.

You may also download an Excel spreadsheet containing the CPI, Population and Personal Income numbers used in these calculations.

Data Availability

Data are available for 1977-2010.

Technical Notes

The reporting period for the Finance variables (starting with R, E, or D) is each government's fiscal year. From Chapter 3.2 - Fiscal Years as Statistical Reporting Periods in the Classification Manual:
"A survey year includes each individual government fiscal year that ended between July 1 of the previous year and June 30 of the survey year. Hence, survey year 2002 (the last census of governments prior to this edition of the Classification Manual), covers individual government fiscal years that ended from July 1, 2001 through June 30, 2002. The resulting Census Bureau statistics for that survey year are referred to as covering fiscal year 2002.

For a variety of methodological, practical, and historical reasons, there are three general exceptions to the fiscal year definition. They involve the Federal Government, three of the state governments noted (AL, MI, and TX), and local school systems in Alabama, Nebraska and Texas (where the fiscal year coincides with the start of the traditional school year). For these governments only, the fiscal year moves beyond June 30 cutoff, so that fiscal year 2002 statistics cover the years that ended on August 31 2002 (TX) and September 30, 2002 (Federal Government, AL, and MI).

This current definition has been used since 1964. Prior to that time, a calendar basis was used - i.e., local government fiscal years used were those that fell within a particular calendar year.

Another aspect of the fiscal year topic is that it applies to both parent governments and their dependent agencies, which sometimes have fiscal years that differ. In most cases, the July 1 through June 30 rule still applies. The finance statistics from the appropriate fiscal years for the parent government and the dependent agency are summed, just as if they both used the same fiscal year, to arrive at totals for the overall government unit."

Population data are mid-calendar year estimates for the year of the data. Example: Selecting the "Per Capita" option for Alabama in 2007 would divide variables by 4,637,904. This is the July 2007 estimate from the Census Bureau.

Personal Income data are for the same calendar year as the year of the data. Example: Selecting the "Fraction of Personal Income" option for Alabama in 2007 would divide variables by $151,999,031,000. This is the personal income amount for Alabama in calendar year 2007. Personal Income data is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Data can be displayed per capita or as a percentage of personal income only at the state, all local, and state and local aggregate levels. For both Population and Personal Income, the same value is used for each state and year, regardless of the level selected. In other words, 4,637,904 is used to calculate per capita variables for Alabama in 2004 whether the level selected is state, local, or state and local. US Total Population and Personal Income amounts at the state level exclude the District of Columbia, which the Census Bureau classifies as a municipality. Thus the value used to calculate per capita variables for US Total in 2007 is 300,993,486 at the state level and 301,579,895 at the local and state and local levels.

Sources

  1. Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual, http://www2.census.gov/govs/pubs/classification/2006_classification_manual.pdf.
  2. U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances and Census of Governments (1977-2010).
  3. U.S. Census Bureau, State Population Estimates, http://www.census.gov/popest/data/index.html.
  4. U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, State Personal Income Estimates, http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.htm#state.