State and Local Government Statistics at a Crossroads (2007) / Chapter Skim
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5 Dissemination and Analysis
5 Dissemination and Analysis
Pages 94-106
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From page 94... ...
TIMELINESS All types of users with which the panel interacted -- federal government agencies, nonprofit organizations representing state and local government interests, and academic researchers -- said their greatest concern was the lack of timeliness of the data, and the panel agrees with this concern. The fact that information on state and local government finances is not available until the third annual revision to estimates of gross domestic product (GDP)
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From page 95... ...
The survey with the greatest timeliness problem is the annual finance survey. The finance survey has several different data releases -- for state and local public employee retirement systems, state finances, public elementary and secondary education finances, and state and local government finances.
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From page 96... ...
96 TABLE 5-1 Timeliness of Release of Governments Division Surveys, as of April 2007 Survey Reference Date Typical Months to Release Notes Quarterly Survey of State 3 calendar months ending Within 3 months of the and Local Government March, June, September, and reference quarter ending Taxation December. Quarterly Survey of Public 3 calendar months ending Within 4.5 months of the Employee Retirement System March, June, September, and reference quarter ending Finances December Annual Survey of Pay period including March Within 12 months of the Government Employment 12 reference pay period Annual Survey of State State government fiscal years Within 9 months of the Government Tax Collection ending June and four states reference fiscal year ending closest to June: New York (March)
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From page 97... ...
Annual Survey of State and Same as Annual Survey of Within 23 months of the Data could span nearly 2 years as Local Government Finances Public Employee Retirement reference fiscal year ending above. System Finances SOURCE: U.S.
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From page 98... ...
Audited financial statements and associated Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) -- standardized reports that are used by rating agencies and bond markets to determine the solvency of the governmental unit -- are based on detailed data that often overlap with the detailed data governments provide to the Governments Division in support of the annual finance survey.
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From page 99... ...
In addition to staggered releases of partial data and preliminary estimates, the division has considered increased use of unaudited data. Although the division currently accepts unaudited data, state governments are reluctant to provide unaudited data because they do not want two sets of data released to the public.
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From page 100... ...
A small representative national sample could also be considered. Recommendation 5-1: The Governments Division should give high priority to a program of research on the benefits and costs of adopt ing earlier release procedures for the annual finance survey and other surveys by such methods as releasing preliminary estimates or releasing estimates as they are compiled.
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From page 101... ...
Improving the Governments Division Website The Governments Division has begun to address data dissemination in terms of website development as part of a broader Census Bureau effort. The Census Bureau has established a Web Council with an executive guidance group, in order to facilitate making data more accessible in a consistent way across all programs.
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From page 102... ...
As a government agency, the Governments Division faces several strictures on the development of its website. The division needs to follow Census Bureau rules concerning the statistical validity of data, and the downloading and table generating components of the system must provide metadata whenever appropriate.
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From page 103... ...
Yet the user communities for the data on state and local governments are different from those on private-sector businesses, so that every effort should be made to clarify the access paths to the state and local government data. As the Governments Division completes the shift away from paper-based dissemination to web-based access, care must be taken
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From page 104... ...
that are complete and easy to access, including use of hot links to information on definitions and measures of error of the type that has traditionally appeared in Governments Division publications; • the capability to crosslink and combine state and local government data with data from other sources, initially with data from other Census Bureau data series on population and industry for states and local areas and, in the future, when issues of data comparabil ity are resolved, with data from other federal agencies; and • graphical analysis and mapping tools to facilitate comparisons over time and among jurisdictions. IN-HOUSE ANALYSES Despite the fact that the Governments Division staff have a wealth of expertise on such topics as state and local government organization, finance trends, and employment trends, and that the staff possess a depth of analytical skills that are honed in the difficult tasks of data editing and imputation, the division does little analysis of its own data for public consumption.
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From page 105... ...
The panel learned in discussions with major data users that much of the needed value-added information from the Governments Division could be quite simple and straightforward to provide and could even be largely automated. Users generally want simple derived measures, such as comparisons over time, time series presented in inflation-adjusted dollars, per capita amounts, and amounts in relation to personal income that the Census Bureau could comfortably provide.
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From page 106... ...
106 STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT STATISTICS AT A CROSSROADS Recommendation 5-3: The Governments Division should add value to the data that are released on its website by providing simple derived measures, such as per capita expenditures and taxes, more explanatory material, and comparative contextual analyses -- for example, of trends by type of government and region. The division should also facilitate wider dissemination of its data by regularly issuing press releases that include statistical comparisons with previous data.
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