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The staff of the Governments DivisionsRecurring Programs Area, headed byHenry S. Wulf, is responsible for thepreparation of this report. DavidKellerman, Stephen Poyta, JosephBruzzese, William Kehm, and JohnKennedy supervised the data collectionand editing activities. Donna A. Hirschcoordinated publication preparation activi-ties. Brandi Desautels, KristinEmerson, Robert M. Johnson, CraigLangley, Deborah J. Loreto-Domer,Debra Spinazzola, Kimberly Suckell,and Ralph Wood prepared tables,reviewed data tabulations, and evaluatedthe final publication copy. John Curryand Kheang Hang performed data pro-cessing operations.

The Systems Support Division provided thetable composition system. Robert JosephBrown, Table Image Processing System(TIPS) Senior Software Engineer, wasresponsible for the design and develop-ment of the TIPS, under the supervision ofRobert J. Bateman, Assistant DivisionChief for Information Systems.

Margaret A. Smith, Meshel L. Butler,and Corey T. Beasley of the Administra-tive and Customer Services Division,Walter C. Odom, Chief, provided publica-tions and printing management, graphicsdesign and composition, and editorialreview for print and electronic media. Gen-eral direction and production managementwere provided by James R. Clark, Assis-tant Chief, and Susan L. Rappa, Chief,Publications Services Branch.

Carma Hogue of the Economic StatisticalMethods and Programming Division,Howard Hogan, Chief, supplied adviceand assistance in statistical methodolo-gies.

The U.S. Census Bureau offers specialthanks for the cooperation and assistanceof the thousands of state and local govern-ment officials in providing information forthis report.

For information regarding data in thisreport, contact the Chief, GovernmentsDivision, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington,DC 20233-6800, or phone toll free1-800-242-2184.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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Thomas L. Mesenbourg,Associate Directorfor Economic Programs

Thomas L. Mesenbourg,Acting Assistant Directorfor Economic Programs

Stephanie H. Brown,Chief, Governments Division

SUGGESTED CITATION

U.S. Census Bureau,2002 Census of Governments,

Volume 4, Number 5,Compendium of Government

Finances: 2002GC02(4)-5,

U.S. Government Printing Office,Washington, DC, 2002.

ECONOMICS

AND STATISTICS

ADMINISTRATION

Economicsand StatisticsAdministration

Kathleen B. Cooper,Under Secretaryfor Economic Affairs

U.S. CENSUS BUREAU

Charles Louis Kincannon,Director

Hermann Habermann,Deputy Director andChief Operating Officer

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Tables

Summaries

1. Summary of State and Local Government Finances: 1986-87 to2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2. Summary of State and Local Government Finances by Level andType of Government: 2001-02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

3. Summary of State and Local Government Finances in Relation toPopulation and Personal Income by Level of Government: 2001-02 . 3

4. Summary of State and Local Government Revenue by Level and Typeof Government: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

5. Percent Distribution of State and Local Government Revenue byType of Revenue: 2001-02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

6. Percent Distribution of State and Local Government Revenue byLevel and Type of Government: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

7. Summary of State and Local Government Expenditure by Characterand Object, Level, and Type of Government: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . 7

8. Summary of State and Local Government Expenditure by Characterand Object, Function, and Level of Government: 2001-02 . . . . . . 8

9. Summary of State and Local Government Direct andIntergovernmental Expenditure by Function and Level ofGovernment: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

10. Summary of State and Local Government Direct Expenditure byFunction, Level, and Type of Government: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . 11

11. Summary of State and Local Government Expenditure for CapitalOutlay by Function, Level, and Type of Government: 2001-02. . . . 13

12. Summary of Finances for State and Local Government-OperatedUtilities by Type of Utility and Government: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . 14

13. Summary of State and Local Government Indebtedness and DebtTransactions by Level and Type of Government: 2001-02 . . . . . . 15

14. Summary of Long-Term State and Local Government DebtOutstanding at End of Fiscal Year by Purpose of Debt and Type ofGovernment: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

15. Summary of State and Local Government Cash and SecurityHoldings by Type and Purpose of Holdings and Level and Type ofGovernment: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

16. Summary of State and Local Government Insurance Trust Financesby Level of Government and Type of Insurance Trust: 2001-02 . . . 19

17. Summary of State and Local Government Employee-RetirementSystem Finances by Level of Government: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . 20

Revenue

18. Summary of State and Local Government Revenue by State:2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

19. General Revenue of State and Local Governments by Source andState: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

CONTENTS

iiiGovernments—Compendium of Government Finances

20. Percent Distribution of Sources of State and Local GovernmentGeneral Revenue by State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

21. Per Capita General Revenue of State and Local Governments bySource and State: 2001-02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

22. Origin and Allocation of State and Local Government GeneralRevenue by Level of Government and State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . 25

23. Tax Revenue of State and Local Governments by Level ofGovernment and State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

24. Tax Revenue of State and Local Governments by Type of Tax andState: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

25. Percent Distribution of Tax Revenue of State and Local Governmentsby Type of Tax and State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

26. Per Capita Tax Revenue of State and Local Governments by Type ofTax and State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

27. General Revenue of State and Local Governments From CurrentCharges by Function and State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

28. State Government Intergovernmental Revenue From Federal andLocal Governments by State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

29. Local Government Intergovernmental Revenue From Federal andState Governments by State: 2001-02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Expenditure

30. Summary of State and Local Government Expenditure by State:2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

31. State and Local Government Expenditure by Character and Objectand State: 2001-02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

32. Percent Distribution of State and Local Government Expenditure byCharacter and Object and State: 2001-02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

33. Per Capita State and Local Government Expenditure by Characterand Object and State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

34. Expenditure of State and Local Governments by Function and State:2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

35. Percent Distribution of State and Local Government Expenditure byFunction and State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

36. Per Capita Expenditure of State and Local Governments by Functionand State: 2001-02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

37. Allocation of State and Local Government Direct GeneralExpenditure by Level of Government and State: 2001-02 . . . . . . 63

38. Capital Outlay of State and Local Governments for SelectedFunctions by State: 2001-02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Utilities

39. Finances of Utilities Operated by State and Local Governments byState, Type of Utility, and Government: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Debt and Cash and Securities

40. Indebtedness and Debt Transactions of State and LocalGovernments by State: 2001-02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

41. Purpose of State and Local Government Long-Term DebtOutstanding at End of Fiscal Year by State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . 82

42. Cash and Security Holdings of State and Local Governments byState: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Insurance Trust

43. State and Local Government Insurance Trust Finances by State:2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

44. State and Local Government Employee-Retirement System Financesby State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

iv Governments—Compendium of Government Finances

State and Local Government Finances

45. State and Local Government Finances by Level of Government andState: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

46. State and Local Government Finances Per Capita by State: 2001-02 . 14447. State and Local Government Finances Per $1,000 of Personal

Income by State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Type of Local Government Finances

48. Local Government Finances by Type of Government and State:2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

County Areas

49. Local Government Finances by Population-Size Group of CountyAreas and State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

50. Local Government Finances for Individual County Areas by State:2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

51. Per Capita Local Government Finances for Individual County Areasby State: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

Rankings

52. State and Local Governments Ranked According to Selected PerCapita Revenue Amounts: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680

53. State and Local Governments Ranked According to Selected PerCapita Expenditure Amounts: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682

54. State and Local Governments Ranked According to Selected PerCapita Debt and Cash and Security Amounts: 2001-02 . . . . . . . 684

Appendixes

A. Definitions of Selected Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A–1B. County-Type Areas Without County Governments . . . . . . . . . . . B–1C. Finances of City-County Governments With 25,000 Population or

More Classified as Municipalities: 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C–1D. Explanation for Tracing Origin and Allocation of Funds in Tables 22

and 37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D–1E. Population and Personal Income by State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E–1F. Multicounty Municipalities With Population of 50,000 or More: 2000. F–1G. Multicounty Special Districts With Major Financial Activity: 2000 . . . G–1

Publication Program Inside back cover

vGovernments—Compendium of Government Finances

Introduction

A census of governments is taken at 5-year intervals asrequired by law under Title 13, United States Code, Sec-tion 161. This 2002 census, similar to those taken since1957, covers three major subject fields—governmentorganization, public employment, and governmentfinances.

Volume 4, Government Finances, contains six parts thatencompass the entire range of state and local governmentfinancial activity in fiscal year 2001-02. They are: No. 1,Finances of Public School Systems; No. 2, Finances of Spe-cial District Governments; No. 3, Finances of County Gov-ernments; No. 4, Finances of Municipal and Township Gov-ernments; No. 5, Compendium of Government Finances;and No. 6, Employee Retirement Systems of State andLocal Governments.

This report, No. 5, provides a comprehensive summary ofthe census findings on governmental finances for fiscalyear 2001-02. It shows data for individual state govern-ments, and local governments by type of government.Separate tables supply aggregations for state areas,county areas, per capita calculations, percentage distribu-tions, and state rankings.

ORGANIZATION OF THIS REPORT

This introductory text describes the scope of the CensusBureau’s government finance data collection activities. Italso explains the intricacies of the types of data and notesthe limitations of the data, as well as their relationship todata in other reports.

The report is divided generally into four sections: Tables 1through 17, 18 through 47, 48 through 51, and 52through 53. Tables 1 through 17 contain state and localsummaries for various financial items. Tables 18 through47 provide the same financial items, but the summariesare for each state area. In Tables 48 through 51, the con-centration is on local government data only for state areasfirst and then for county areas. Tables 52 and 53 organizethe financial items into rank order for analytical purposes.

Table 1 displays state and local government finances for2001-02 and other census years to provide an historicalperspective.

State and local government totals of revenue, expenditure,indebtedness, and financial holdings by type of govern-ment appear in Tables 2 through 17. Finances by level andtype of government are provided in Table 2 and are

related to population and personal income in Table 3. Rev-enue data appear in Tables 4 through 6 and expendituredata in Tables 7 through 11. Table 12 includes data ongovernment-operated utilities. Government indebtednessand debt transactions are provided in Tables 13 and 14,cash and security holdings are detailed in Table 15, andgovernmental insurance trust finances are summarized inTables 16 and 17.

Statewide aggregates appear in Tables 18 through 47.Revenue data are shown in Tables 18 through 29, includ-ing detailed presentations on tax revenue, currentcharges, and intergovernmental revenue. This revenuesection also contains tables displaying percent distribu-tions of revenue by source, per capita revenue, and originand allocation of state and local government revenue.

Tables 30 through 38 exhibit state area totals for expendi-ture by character and object, with special displays forcapital outlay, and function. These presentations also pro-vide data on per capita expenditure, percent distributionof outlays, and allocations of state and local governmentdirect general expenditure.

More specialized displays are shown for governmentallyoperated utilities (Table 39), debt transactions and long-term debt by function (Tables 40 and 41), cash and secu-rity holdings (Table 42), and insurance trust finances(Tables 43 and 44). The complete summations of thefinances in each state area that appear in Table 45 are fol-lowed in Tables 46 and 47 by calculations of these samedata in terms of per capita and per $1,000 personalincome.

SCOPE

Governmental Units

There were 87,576 governmental units canvassed in thefinance phase of the 2002 Census of Governments. Inaddition to the federal government and 50 state govern-ments, there were 87,525 units of local government. Ofthese 38,967 are general-purpose localgovernments—3,043 county governments, 19,429 munici-pal governments, and 16,504 township governments. Theremainder, more than one-half of the total number, arelimited-purpose local governments, including 13,506school district governments and 35,052 special districtgovernments.

The following paragraphs summarize the characteristicsfor each of the five major types of local governments. See

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the report Government Organization (Volume 1, No. 2,2002 Census of Governments) for further information ongovernmental structure.

County Governments

Organized county governments are found throughout thenation except for Connecticut, Rhode Island, the District ofColumbia, and limited portions of other states where cer-tain county areas lack a distinct county government (SeeAppendix C for a listing of county-type areas withoutcounty government.) In Louisiana, the county govern-ments are officially designated as ‘‘parish’’ governments,and in Alaska the ‘‘borough’’ governments resemblecounty governments in other states. Both are classified ascounty governments for census statistics on governments.

Not all geographic areas known as counties have countygovernments. Where municipal and county governmentshave been consolidated, or substantially merged, the com-posite units are classed as municipalities for the CensusBureau reporting of governmental statistics. Moreover, thecities of Baltimore and St. Louis are outside the areas ofthe adjacent counties of Baltimore and St. Louis, and asimilar situation exists among 39 independent cities inVirginia. Since these exceptional areas also include NewYork City, Philadelphia, and several other of the mostpopulous cities (or composite city-counties) in the nation,over 7 percent of the total United States population is notserved by a county government.

The number of county governments per state rangeswidely. Texas has the highest total at 254 and severalstates have fewer than 20.

There are 201 county governments, located in 40 states,which serve populations of at least 250,000. These 201county governments, constituting 6.6 percent of allcounty governments, account for 56 percent of the popu-lation served by all county governments in the nation. Theoverwhelming majority of county governments (72 per-cent) each serve fewer than 50,000 persons, and the 671counties that have fewer than 10,000 inhabitants eachserve altogether only 3.7 million persons.

The average population served by a county government isabout 83,000. But Loving County, TX, had only 67 inhabit-ants in 2000, while Los Angeles County, CA had more than9.5 million.

Municipal Governments

As defined for census statistics on governments, munici-pal governments are political subdivisions within which amunicipal corporation has been established to providegeneral local government for a specific population concen-tration in a defined area. This includes all active govern-mental units officially designated as cities, boroughs(except in Alaska), towns (except in the six New Englandstates, Minnesota, New York, and Wisconsin), and villages.

In Alaska, the term ‘‘borough’’ corresponds to unitsclassed as county governments. In New England, Minne-sota, New York, and Wisconsin, the term ‘‘town’’ refers toan area subdivision that may be legally termed a munici-pal corporation and have a similar governmental organiza-tion but has no necessary relationship to a concentrationof population, and thus corresponds to the term ‘‘town-ship’’ in other states.

The number of municipalities per state ranges widely. Illi-nois, Texas, and Pennsylvania each has more than 1,000while at the other extreme are eight states with fewer than50 municipalities each; Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massa-chusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Ver-mont. Six of these eight states are in New England where atown government often provides urban services ordinarilyprovided by municipalities in other states.

In the United States, nearly 175 million people live in areaswith municipal governments, and about 76 million ofthese municipal residents live in cities of at least 100,000population. Slightly less than one-half of all municipalitieshave fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. However, these smallmunicipalities account for only 2.2 percent of the totalpopulation served by municipal governments.

Township Governments

Township governments exist to serve inhabitants of areasdefined without regard to population concentrations, asdistinguished from municipal governments which are cre-ated to serve specific population concentrations. The termis applied here to organized governments in 20 states.This category includes government units officially desig-nated as: ‘‘towns’’ in the six New England states, NewYork, and Wisconsin; some ‘‘plantations’’ in Maine; some‘‘locations’’ in New Hampshire; and governments calledtownships in other areas. In Minnesota the terms ‘‘town’’and ‘‘township’’ are used interchangeably with reference totownship governments. Although townships in New Jerseyand Pennsylvania are legally termed ‘‘municipal corpora-tions,’’ they have no necessary relation to concentration ofpopulation and are thus treated for census purposes astownship governments.

Excluded from this category of township governments areunorganized township areas, townships coextensive withcities where the city governments have absorbed thetownship functions, and townships known to have ceasedperforming governmental functions. Also excluded are thetownships in Iowa, which are classified as subordinateagencies of county governments.

Township governments are restricted to the northeasternand north central states. Only Indiana has township gov-ernments covering all its area and population. In six states(Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylva-nia, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin), operating townships

viii Census of Governments Governments—Compendium of Government Finances

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comprise all territory other than that served by municipali-ties. The same is true for Maine, except for ‘‘unorganizedterritory’’ that lacks any local government. Of the remain-ing 12 township states, there are ten where this type ofgovernment appears only in certain county areas as ofearly 2002; Illinois, in 85 of the 102 county areas; Kansasin 97 of 105; Minnesota, in 85 of 87; Missouri, in 23 of115; Nebraska, in 28 of 93; North Dakota, in 48 of 53;Pennsylvania, in 66 of 67; South Dakota, in 52 of 66; andWisconsin, 71 of 72. In New York, town governments existin each county outside New York City.

All municipal governments in Indiana and some, but notall municipalities in ten other township states (Connecti-cut, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,Nebraska, New York, Ohio, and Vermont) operate withinterritory that is served also by township governments. Inthe remaining 9 of the 20 township states, there is no geo-graphic overlapping of these two kinds of units.

Of the 16,504 township governments in the United States,8,652 had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. Only slightlymore than 1,179 townships had as many as 10,000 inhab-itants.

Special District Governments

Special district governments are independent, limited-purpose local governmental units that exist as separatelegal entities with substantial administrative and fiscalindependence from general purpose governments. Asdefined for census purposes, the term ‘‘special districtgovernment’’ excludes school district governments, coun-ties, municipalities, and townships.

Special district governments provide specific services thatare not being supplied by existing governments. Most per-form a single function, but in some instances theirenabling legislation allows them to provide several, usu-ally related, types of services. The services provided bythese districts range from such basic social needs as hos-pitals and fire protection to the less conspicuous tasks ofmosquito abatement and upkeep of cemeteries.

The Census Bureau classification of special districts coversa wide variety of entities, most of which are officiallycalled districts or authorities. Not all public agencies sotermed, however, represent separate governmental units.Many organizations that carry the designation district orauthority are by law so closely related to county, munici-pal, township, or state governments that they areregarded for Census Bureau reporting purposes as subor-dinate or component agencies of those governmentsrather than as distinct special district governments.

In order to be classified as a special district governmentrather than a subordinate agency, an entity must possessthree attributes—existence as an organized entity, govern-mental character, and substantial autonomy. Volume 1,

No. 2, Government Organization of the 2002 Census ofGovernments provides an explanation of how these crite-ria were applied, as well as a summary description in eachstate of legally authorized special district governments.That report also lists in each state various statutoryauthorities, commissions, corporations, and other organi-zations that have certain governmental characteristics butare subject by law to administrative or financial control bythe state or by independent local governments and are,therefore, classified as subordinate agencies of such gov-ernments.

As a group, special districts are by far the most rapidlygrowing type of government, rising to a total of 35,052,an increase of about 369 or 1 percent since the previousCensus of Governments in 1996-97. This growth over thepast 5 years—on top of a more than 10 percent risebetween 1992 and 1997 and a nearly 7 percent increasefrom 1987 to 1992—reflects the increased public demandfor the provision of specialized services either not offeredor not performed on a satisfactory scale by existing gov-ernments. Since most special districts perform only onefunction, or a very limited number of functions, theirestablishment allows a greater degree of concentratedeffort in providing services.

The increasing number of special districts also reflectsfinancial considerations. As new programs are initiated, ornew services required, the establishment of special dis-tricts may eliminate the need to increase the burden ongeneral purpose governments, which may be unable tomeet the fiscal requirements necessary to implementthese new programs. Debt and tax limitations are furtherstimulants to creating special districts for raising bothcapital construction and operating expenditure funds.

The number of special districts varies considerably amongthe states and has only a weak relationship with popula-tion. The following 11 states, each having more than1,000 special districts, in total accounted for more thanone-half of all special districts:

StateNumber of

special districts

Illinois 3,145California 2,830Texas 2,245Pennsylvania 1,885Kansas 1,533Missouri 1,514Colorado 1,414Washington 1,173Nebraska 1,146New York 1,135Indiana 1,125

Four state areas contained fewer than 50 special districtseach: Alaska (14), District of Columbia (1), Hawaii (15),and Louisiana (39).

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School District Governments and Public SchoolSystems

Of the 15,014 public school systems in the United States,only the 13,506 that are independent school districts areincluded in the count of governments. The other 1,508‘‘dependent’’ public school systems are classified as agen-cies of other governments—state, county, municipal, ortownship—and are not counted as separate governments.

California and Texas, each of which had more than 1,000school district governments—accounted for 16 percent ofall school district governments in the nation. The numberof states having at least 1,000 school district governmentsdecreased from 25 in 1942 to 20 in 1952, 15 in 1962, 4 in1972, and 2 since 1992.

Because of the variety of state legislative provisions forthe administration and operation of public schools,marked diversity is found in school organization through-out the United States. The number of states providing forpublic schools solely through independent school districtsnumbered 31 in 2002. This independent district arrange-ment, which prevails in most parts of the country, is prac-tically universal in the West.

A ‘‘mixed’’ situation is found in 15 states, with the publicschools that provide elementary and secondary educationoperated in some areas by independent school districtsand elsewhere by a county, municipal, township, or stategovernment. In the District of Columbia and in four states(Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland, and North Carolina) there areno independent school districts; all public schools areadministered by systems that are agencies of the county,municipal, or state government.

Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michi-gan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Texas have one ormore state-dependent public school systems. All publicschools in Hawaii are administrated directly as part of thestate government, but in Maine the arrangement appliesonly to one sparsely populated area. Alaska operates 19state-dependent school systems.

Public school systems operating as dependent agencies ofcounty governments appear mostly in Tennessee, Virginia,and North Carolina, which contain nearly two-thirds of allcounty-dependent systems. However, California has 59county-dependent systems and New Jersey 50. Otherstates containing school systems operating as dependentagencies of county governments are: Alaska (13), Arizona(14), Maryland (38), Massachusetts (2), Mississippi (3),New Hampshire (1), New York (25), and Wisconsin (2). Sys-tems associated with township (or ‘‘town’’) governmentsare found only in New England and New Jersey. There arepublic school systems operated by municipal governmentsin each of 12 states and the District of Columbia, but inmost of these states some other pattern predominates,and only in the District of Columbia are all public schoolsoperated by a municipally dependent system.

GENERAL CONCEPTS

This report uses a number of terms that, in other con-texts, might have different meanings. Further, some of thetabular presentations contain concepts that are not com-monly used or easily understood. If the following—that isa limited attempt to explain some of these terms andideas—does not provide sufficient information, pleasewrite to the Chief, Governments Division, U.S. CensusBureau, or telephone at 800-242-2184.

Current Dollars

The statistics in this report, as in the others issued by theCensus Bureau on state, and local government finances,are in terms of current dollar amounts. They have notbeen adjusted for price and wage changes occurringthrough the years.

Fiscal Years

Data in this report pertain to government fiscal years thatended between July 1, 2001, and June 30, 2002. The fol-lowing governments are exceptions, and are includedthough they were part of the June 30 group: ending Sep-tember 30, the state governments of Alabama and Michi-gan, the District of Columbia, and Alabama school dis-tricts; and ending August 31, the state government ofNebraska, Texas, and Chicago school districts. New Yorkstate ends its fiscal year on March 31 and beside thosealready mentioned, is the only other exception to the June30 ending for state governments.

Not all agencies of a government necessarily have a fiscalperiod that coincides with the central organization. Totalsfor an individual government, in those instances, are thesummation of finances for all agencies with a fiscal periodending between July 1, 2001, and June 30, 2002.

Slightly more than one-half of all county governments inthe nation had a fiscal year corresponding directly withcalendar year 2001—i.e., they ended their fiscal year onDecember 30, 2001. September and November were othercommon months in which county governments endedtheir fiscal years.

Almost three-fourths of all municipal governments in thenation had a fiscal year ending in either December (40 per-cent) or June (32.8 percent). September and April were thenext most common months in which municipal govern-ments ended their fiscal years. Three-fifths of all town-ships had a fiscal year corresponding directly with calen-dar year 2001—i.e., they ended their fiscal year onDecember 31, 2001. March, February, and June had thenext most common fiscal year ending dates for townships.

For special district governments there is a wide variety infiscal year ending dates, with June 30 and December 31being the most common. There is, however, no predomi-nant pattern. By contrast, for school districts, June 30 pre-dominates overwhelmingly, with the only exceptionsbeing in Alabama, Nebraska, and Texas states, and Chi-cago city as noted previously.

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Composition of Financial Amounts

Revenues and expenditures comprise actual receipts andpayments of a government and its agencies (net of cor-recting transactions and recoveries or refunds), includinggovernment-operated enterprises, utilities, and publictrust funds. Transactions excluded as revenue or expendi-ture are: debt issuance and retirement; loans and invest-ments; agency and private trust transactions; and internaltransfers between funds of a government. Aggregates forgroups of governments exclude intergovernmental trans-actions between the governments involved.

Government Financial Sectors

Government financial data are presented within broadactivity sectors, including general government, utilities,liquor stores, and insurance trust activities. General gov-ernment includes all government revenue and expenditureexcept activities defined as utility, liquor stores, and insur-ance trust transactions. Other commercial-type operationsof governments, such as port facilities, airports, toll high-ways, and housing projects—as well as all such agenciesand activities of the federal government including itscorporations—are part of the general government sector.Major insurance programs administered by the federalgovernment, including crop and farm mortgage insurance,investment guarantee activities, and home mortgageinsurance are reported in general government. Utilities arewater supply, electric power, and gas supply systems, andtransit facilities owned and operated by governments oroperated under contract by a private firm whenever thegovernment maintains day-to-day financial oversight.Liquor stores comprise dispensaries operated by 17 stategovernments and by local governments in 6 states. Insur-ance trust activities consist of publicly funded contribu-tory retirement systems for public employees, and speci-fied government social and life insurance programs, suchas unemployment compensation, workers’ compensation,Federal Social Security (Old Age, Survivors, Disability, andHealth Insurance), and state medical and disability funds.

Revenue Concepts

As noted above, revenue is reported net of recoveries andcorrecting transactions and excludes amounts from debtissuance, internal transfers, and private trust transactions.The following examples illustrate some applications ofthis summary definition:

1. Tax revenue is reported in terms of gross collectionsminus tax refunds during the same period.

2. Receipts from issuance of debt, recoupment of previ-ous loans, and sale of securities are not counted asrevenue.

3. Property tax amounts, widely collected by county gov-ernments acting as an agent of other governments,are counted as revenue of the final receiving unitsonly.

4. State and local governments act as agents of the fed-eral government in withholding federal income andSocial Security taxes from their employees’ pay; suchamounts are excluded from state and local govern-ment revenue and expenditure.

5. The Federal Treasury handles unemployment compen-sation accounts for the states and the District ofColumbia government and are included with the stateand local government data.

6. Figures in this report include the gross transactions ofbusiness-type government corporations and agencies.

Taxes consist of compulsory contributions exacted bygovernments for public purposes. However, this reportingcategory excludes employer and employee payments forretirement and social insurance purposes (classed as insur-ance trust revenue) and special assessments, which areclassed as nontax general revenue.

Charges and miscellaneous general revenue comprises allnontax revenue of governments from their own sourcesexcluding nongeneral revenues from utilities, liquorstores, and insurance trusts. Most of this revenue is fromcharges for current services and sale of products in con-nection with general government activities. Such amountsare designated as current charges and are reported on agross basis, without offset of the cost of producing orbuying the commodities or services sold. Utility servicecharges are excluded here and reported under utility rev-enue.

Utility revenue and liquor stores revenue compriseamounts from sales of goods and services by such under-takings.

Insurance trust revenue comprises only: (1) retirement andinsurance contributions (including social insurance ‘‘taxes’’and veterans’ insurance ‘‘premiums’’) received frominsured individuals and their government employers; and(2) for state and local systems, earnings on investmentassets of insurance trust funds.

Employer contributions and other transfers made by theadministering governments to their insurance trust fundsare treated as intragovernmental transactions rather thangovernment revenue or expenditure. However, to theextent that particular governments make payments asemployers to insurance trust systems administered byother governments—for example, employer contributionsby state and local governments to the Federal Social Secu-rity System (OASDHI) or local government payments tostate administered retirement systems—such amounts areincluded here without special treatment, in the ‘‘revenuefrom contributions’’ of the various systems affected. Inaddition, federal advances and contributions to stateunemployment compensation funds have been includedwith unemployment compensation revenue.

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Expenditure Concepts

The expenditure reporting categories comprise allamounts of money paid out by a government and its agen-cies, with the exception of amounts for debt retirement,and for loan, investment, agency, and private trust trans-actions. Note that expenditures include payments from allsources and funds, including amounts spent from borrow-ing and from previous period balances, as well as fromcurrent revenues. Included in this category are expendi-tures of business-type government corporations and agen-cies. Transactions not considered as expenditures includepayments for debt retirement, extension of loans, pur-chase of securities, and payments to the federal govern-ment of monies withheld for income tax or Social Security(OASDHI) purposes.

The commonly used character and object (or use) catego-ries this finance series employs are: intergovernmentalexpenditure, current operation, capital outlay, assistanceand subsidies, interest on debt, insurance benefits andrepayments, and salaries and wages.

Government expenditure for capital outlay is commonlyfinanced by borrowing, but government revenue does notinclude receipts from borrowing. This, among otherthings, means that the relationship between totals of rev-enue and expenditure, as shown in this report, should notbe considered a direct measure of the degree of budgetary‘‘balance.’’

In addition to payments for goods, services, and capitalitems, total government expenditure includes sizableamounts of payments for which no services or productsare directly received in return. A major portion of suchpayments comprises items reported here as assistanceand subsidies. These amounts include only cash grantsand not gifts of supplies, materials, or other grants-in-kind. The cost of items to be distributed in-kind isincluded in current operation expenditure as purchases ofgoods and services.

Insurance benefit and repayment amounts are limited toactual payments to insured persons and beneficiaries and,therefore, exclude as internal transfers contributions bygovernments to insurance trust funds they administer, andcosts of administering insurance trust programs (whichare classified as general expenditure).

Payments for salaries and wages consist of gross amountspaid to government employees before deductions forincome tax, retirement contributions, charges for quartersor subsistence, or other purposes. They comprise onlycash payments and exclude the value of subsistence, quar-ters, or other payments in-kind made to military personnelor other public employees. Salaries and wages are mainlyfor current operation but also include some amounts forforce account construction.

Detailed statistics on civilian public employment and pay-rolls as of March 2002 appear in the 2002 Census of Gov-ernments, Volume 3, No. 1, Employment of Major LocalGovernments, and No. 2, Compendium of Public Employ-ment. The primary difference between the finance andemployment information is that the information in thisvolume is for an annual period while the data in Volume 3are for 1 month.

In presenting expenditures by function, this reportattempts to show a more comprehensive picture by group-ing related activities into broader classifications. Forexample, social services and income maintenance includespublic welfare, hospitals, health, social insurance adminis-tration, and veterans’ services. Transportation includeshighways, airports, parking facilities, and water transportand terminals. The report does not provide totals for theselarger categories because they are meant only as presenta-tional guidelines and, except in a few instances, have nodata precedents.

Expenditures for specific functions do not include anyamounts for debt service costs. Interest payments on debtare not classified under particular functions for which debtmay have been incurred, but rather are shown in thesingle interest category.

Note that the functions cannot be equated specificallywith one federal or state government program. Medicaid,for example, is included in the larger public welfare func-tion. Instead the functional categories represent broaderactivities of government that have remained virtuallyunchanged over many years so that as specific programsexpand and contract they will remain useful for analyticalpurposes.

Further, these functions have utility beyond the limits ofthis specific report or other Volume 4 publications on gov-ernment finances. Other phases of the census of govern-ments, including the organization and employment, usethese same functions, making cross-analysis feasible.

Understanding the specific functional categories requiresclose attention to the definitions in Appendix A. The fol-lowing discussion supplements, but does not supplant,that basic information.

Education. The education function, perhaps more thanany other, emphasizes the intergovernmental flow offunds. Besides the direct expenditures made at the fed-eral, state, and local government level, there are largeintergovernmental education transfers that include: directfederal grants-in-aid to schools as provided under the vari-ous ‘‘title’’ programs; state ‘‘foundation’’ aid; federal aidchanneled through the state government to local schools;and interlocal payments for education services.

Elementary and secondary expenditure for educationincludes all expenditures of school systems other than forinterest (reported under interest on general debt), duplica-tive intergovernmental payments, and retirement benefits

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paid to former education employees (reported underemployee-retirement expenditure). It thus includes grossschool system expenditure for the school lunch programand other cafeteria operations, as well as school health,recreation, and library services administered by schoolsystems.

Higher education pertains to publicly operated universi-ties, colleges, junior colleges, and other schools beyondthe high school level. Expenditures shown under thisheading includes gross payments for auxiliary activities,such as dormitories, dining halls, and bookstores operatedby public institutions of higher education. However,expenditure of such institutions for hospitals serving thepublic and for agricultural experiment stations and exten-sion services is reported under hospitals and naturalresources, respectively.

Public welfare. This activity includes institutional andnoninstitutional assistance to the needy, plus the adminis-tration of such assistance. The degree to which statesassume direct responsibility for public welfare services ordelegate this to local governments varies. There is a sig-nificant federal participation in this activity, primarily thefinancing of public welfare services by other governments.State and local expenditures include any applicable cashbenefits in excess of, or supplementary to, those financeswith federal monies.

Categorical cash assistance payments to state govern-ments and the District of Columbia in this report includemainly maintenance assistance under the federal program,‘‘Aid to Families With Dependent Children, MaintenanceAssistance—State Aid (AFDC).’’ All states participate inAFDC and the matching requirements vary from aboutone-fifth to one-half of the federal payments.

The federal government administers directly those cat-egorical welfare assistance programs for old age assis-tance, aid to the blind, and aid to the disabled that arenow incorporated into the Supplemental Security Incomeprogram. State and local government cash benefitssupplementing these direct federal welfare outlays arerelatively small, occurring in only a few states.

General relief, which is wholly financed from state andlocal sources, makes up most of the other cash assistance.Other public welfare spending includes: vendor paymentsunder various public welfare programs, including the fed-erally supported medical care program commonly knownas Medicaid; institutional care for the needy; and adminis-tration of welfare activities.

Hospitals. Expenditures for hospitals facilities directlyoperated by state and local governments and payments toprivate medical facilities belong here. Medical vendor pay-ments provide some variation in classification; private pur-veyor payments made under welfare programs are classed

as public welfare, but any services provided directly by agovernment through its hospital agency are includedunder this heading.

Transportation. Highways include provision and mainte-nance of highway facilities, including toll turnpikes,bridges, tunnels, and ferries, as well as regular roads,highways, and city streets. These figures exclude intereston debt issued for highway purposes (included in intereston general debt) and highway policing costs (classifiedunder police protection). Most state funds in this functiongo for regular highway facilities with the remainder for tollroads and bridges, which are generally administrated bysemiautonomous agencies of the state governments.

Natural resources. Natural resources include expendi-tures for conservation and development of agricultural,forest, fish and game, mineral, and similar resources. Fed-eral government payments are mainly for gross amountsof commodity purchases in the form of price stabilizationprograms. No exclusion is made for commodities resoldduring the year or transfer to federal aid programs.

For state and local governments, natural resources coversactivities pertaining to agriculture including extension ser-vices and experiment stations, soil conservation, floodcontrol, irrigation, and drainage. However, water supply,electric utilities, and hydroelectric power activities arereported under utilities.

Police protection. Local government payments for policeand traffic safety activities amount to the most significantpart of police protection. State expenditure is mainly forhighway police activities.

Indebtedness

State and local government long-term debt includes gen-eral obligation bonds, guaranteed by the taxing power ofthe governments, as well as nonguaranteed indebtednessthat pledges only some nontax source—rents, charges, ortolls for example-related to the bond purpose as credit.Governments have become very active in providing finan-cial assistance to private and nonprofit organizationsthrough the issuance of tax exempt bonds. This financialintermediation by state and local governments covers avariety of activities including industrial development aid,assistance to commercial and retail developers, single-family and multifamily housing development, hospital andhealth care facilities, and pollution abatement plant andequipment expenditures.

A significant classification change in the reporting of sta-tistics on indebtedness took place effective with the1978-79 Annual Survey of Government Finances. Prior tothat time both original issues and related advance refund-ing issues were included as debt outstanding of the gov-ernment. Amounts reported for debt outstanding, debt

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retired, and debt offsets now reflect the ‘‘redemption’’ oforiginal issues of bonds when no longer carried in the offi-cial accounts of governments.

The calculation of the change in total debt shown in sometables requires information not published separately inthis report. It is, however, available in detailed recordsfrom the Census Bureau.

Utilities and Liquor Stores

Utility expenditure and liquor stores expenditure compriseall spending involved in provision and conduct of suchundertakings—i.e., acquisition of facilities, current opera-tion (including the purchase of goods and services forresale), and interest on utility debt.

State and local government utility revenue means onlycharges received for services. Other revenues received byutilities—for example, interest earnings—are counted asgeneral revenues of a government (see definitions inAppendix A).

Liquor stores are operated by certain municipalities instates (Minnesota, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Wis-consin), counties in two states (Maryland and North Caro-lina), and by 17 state governments. Amounts reported inthis financial category do not include revenue from stateor local taxes that are collected through liquor monopolysystems, nor distinguishable expenditure for licensing andlaw enforcement activities in connection with these sys-tems. Such amounts are treated as general revenue andgeneral expenditure, respectively.

Insurance Trusts

Every state and the District of Columbia operates a systemof unemployment insurance and one or more publicemployee-retirement systems. Most of the states alsoadminister workers’ compensation systems, and a fewhave other social insurance systems involving the pay-ment of cash benefits from accumulated fund reserves.Among local governments, the primary financial activity ininsurance trusts relates to publicly administeredemployee-retirement systems.

Transactions of these various systems—exclusive ofadministrative cost (treated as general expenditure) and ofgovernment contributions (classified as intragovernmentaltransactions)— are reported as insurance trust revenueand insurance trust expenditure. Only insurance benefitsand repayments of contributions from insurance fundscomprise insurance trust expenditure.

The coverage in a number of state-administered employeeretirement systems includes local government employeesexclusively or in combination with state employees. Thelocal government contributions to state systems to paythe local employee portion are included under insurancetrust revenue of the state government and as direct

expenditure of the local government. Although there is aflow of funds from one government to another, the censusclassification system does not count this as intergovern-mental revenue because intergovernmental revenues aregeneral revenues by definition. See the Governments Divi-sion, Census Bureau Internet site athttp://www.census.gov/govs/www/retire.html—EmployeeRetirement Systems of State and Local Governments foradditional specific information about employee-retirementsystems.

Lotteries

There were 38 states and the District of Columbia withgovernment lotteries in operation during fiscal year 2001-02. This was an increase from the 37 state and local gov-ernment lotteries in operation in fiscal year 1996-97. Inthis report, the amounts available for distribution fromlottery proceeds to various government funds are includedin the miscellaneous revenue total. Please refer to 2002State Government Finances (Governments Division, U.S.Census Bureau Internet site athttp://www.census.gov/govs/www/state.html for detailedinformation on the income and apportionment of funds inindividual lottery systems.

Intragovernmental and IntergovernmentalTransactions

Intragovernmental flows. Census statistics ignore gov-ernment fund structure to achieve comparability. Since thedata for each individual government represent a consoli-dation of amounts for its various funds, paymentsbetween funds have been eliminated. Thus, for example, agovernment’s employer contribution to a retirement fundit administers is not counted as expenditure, nor is thereceipt of this contribution by the retirement fund consid-ered as revenue. For census purposes, only the retirementbenefits are classified as a governmentexpenditure—insurance trust expenditure in this example.

State and local governments pay some interest on debtthat is held as investment securities by insurance fundsthey administer. However, because of difficulty in identify-ing such transactions, this interest is counted as revenuein contravention of the rule about payments betweenfunds.

Intergovernmental flows. Funds flowing between gov-ernments (subject to limited exceptions, mentionedbelow) are treated distinctively as intergovernmental rev-enue and intergovernmental expenditure. Mainly they rep-resent grants-in-aid and the sharing of tax proceeds, butalso include payments in lieu of taxes and amounts forservices performed by one government for another on areimbursable or cost-sharing basis.

Total revenue and total expenditure for an individual gov-ernment, of course, include any intergovernmentalamounts. When measuring groups of governments—a

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state area, a county area, a type of local government—monies going from one government to another must benetted out to arrive at nonduplicative totals. These aggre-gations treat each government as if it were a ‘‘fund’’ underthe intragovernmental flows described above. Forexample, the aggregate amounts for all local governmentswithin the Maricopa (AZ) county area, shown in Table 50,exclude any financial transactions between Phoenix andother local governments in the Maricopa county area.Similarly in Table 45, providing state area totals by level ofgovernment, the local government data exclude transac-tions between Phoenix and any other local government,and the state area totals exclude both the interlocal andstate-local financial exchanges.

The value of intergovernmental aid ‘‘in-kind’’ such as com-modities distributed by the federal government for schoollunch purposes, is not treated as an intergovernmentalrevenue or expenditure. Furthermore, there are somekinds of transactions between governments that have notbeen isolated for special treatment here as intergovern-mental in nature:

1. In situations where a government-administeredemployee retirement system covers the employees ofa second government, contributions by the latter areincluded, without distinction, as part of the currentoperation expenditure of the donor government andas insurance trust revenue of the donee government.

2. No attempt at special treatment has been applied tointerest on outstanding debt that is paid to other gov-ernments holding the securities involved.

3. No special handling has been attempted for transac-tions where governments deal as ordinary suppliersand customers, e.g., in purchasing property utility ser-vices, or supplies from one another. Under thismethod, where one government buys water or elec-tricity from a second, the entire transaction is classi-fied as utility with no intergovernmental component.

INTERCOUNTY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Most local governments in the United States operateentirely within a single county area, but there are someunits whose territory extends into two or more countyareas. Each of these intercounty governments is countedonly once in this report and has been assigned for pur-poses of enumeration to the county area where its head-quarters is located, or in the case of municipal govern-ments to the county area having the largest share of itspopulation.

Knowledge about intercounty governments and theassignment of data is very important in making interareacomparisons from Tables 50 and 51. For example, theWashington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)is a special district government operating in eight county

areas in the proximity of Washington, DC. Its revenue,expenditure, debt outstanding, and fund balances areassigned to the District of Columbia area, site of its princi-pal offices. The Washington, DC. per capita data in Table51, therefore, are increased in their revenue, expenditure,and debt outstanding totals by $2,685, $1,375, and $405,respectively. In fact, however, a portion of these databelongs in the seven other county areas served by thisspecial district.

Though the Census Bureau acknowledges the advisabilityof allocating these intercounty governments, we havemade no attempt to do this because there was no stan-dard criterion or methodology available that could beapplied practically in the majority of cases. The listings inAppendixes F and G provide some details in those caseswhere there might be the most severe data dislocations.Further information regarding intercounty governmentsmay be requested from the Chief, Governments Division,U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC. 20233.

COUNTY AREA DATA

All county area information pertains only to local govern-ment data—that is counties, municipalities, townships,special districts, and school districts. Tables 49 through51 provide information about county areas. Table 49 sum-marizes the county area information by population-sizegroup of county areas within states and shows additionalpercent distribution and per capita calculations, individuallocal government county area data are presented in Table50, and the corresponding per capita figures are in Table51.

When comparing county areas, remember that the data areunadjusted for any differences in cost of living. Further,these data can be influenced heavily by the presence ofintercounty governments, large amounts of debt issuedfor capital projects, and unique local circumstances suchas difficult geography or very small populations.

RELATION TO OTHER CENSUS REPORTS

Numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 in Volume 4 of the 2002 Census ofGovernments supply detailed information on the financesof school systems, special districts, county governments,municipalities, and townships. Except in a very fewinstances, where limited revisions may have applied,amounts appearing in those reports agree with corre-sponding items shown here. Note, however, that expendi-ture amounts shown in this report sometimes pertain todirect expenditure, excluding intergovernmental amounts.Related presentations in separate reports deal with expen-diture in total, including any applicable intergovernmentalamounts for particular functions.

RELATION TO NATIONAL INCOME STATISTICS

Figures on state and local government ‘‘receipts’’ and‘‘expenditures’’ that appear in the national income and

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product statistics issued by the U.S. Department of Com-merce, Bureau of Economics Analysis, are based primarilyon Census Bureau data on ‘‘revenue’’ and ‘‘expenditure.’’However, there are differences in the totals and some ofthe components of the two sets of statistics owing to dif-ferences in concepts and timing. The principal areas ofdifferences are:

1. Census statistics on government finances include, ona gross basis, revenue from sales and charges of pub-licly operated utilities, liquor stores, toll facilities, andthe like, and all expenditures of these undertakings. Inthe national income accounts, such commercial-typegovernment activities are treated, in effect, as a partof the business sector of the economy. Accordingly,their charge revenue is excluded from ‘‘governmentreceipts’’ and is applied as an offset to current govern-ment expenditures.

2. Census statistics on revenue and expenditure, respec-tively, include interest received on investments andinterest paid on debt by state and local governments.In national income accounts, interest received isdeducted from interest paid and only the net interestpaid is included in government expenditures.

3. In census statistics, revenues and benefit payments ofunemployment compensation systems are classed asinsurance trust amounts of state and local govern-ments, while in national income accounts they aretreated in the federal government sector.

4. Census figures include as revenue amounts from saleof real property, and as expenditure capital outlayamounts for purchase of land and existing structures.In national income accounts, such amounts areexcluded.

5. In census data, employer contributions by state andlocal governments to self- administered employee-retirement systems are classed as intragovernmentaltransactions and excluded from revenue and expendi-ture totals. In national income accounts, however,such ‘‘government contributions to self-administeredsocial insurance funds’’ are included in revenue andalso in expenditure as supplements to wage and sal-ary payments.

SOURCES OF DATA

State Government Finances

The statistics on state government finances shown in thisreport are based primarily on the 2002 Annual Survey ofState Finances. Findings from that survey appear on theGovernments Division, Census Bureau Internet site athttp://www.census.gov/govs/www/state.html.

Trained representatives of the U.S. Census Bureau com-piled figures in detail from official records and reports ofthe various states for most of the state financial data. Datafor tax revenue, some debt figures, and the finances ofstate administered retirement and miscellaneous insurancetrust systems came from mail canvasses. As with localschool systems, the Integrated Postsecondary EducationData Survey, conducted by the National Center for Educa-tion Statistics in agreement with the Census Bureau, wasthe main source of state college and university data. Thefigures assembled by these various efforts were classifiedaccording to standard Census Bureau categories. Becauseof the collection methods and their relative importance,the state financial data received an intensive review.

Data on the finances of unemployment compensation sys-tems were obtained from the Employment and TrainingAdministration of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Local Government Finances

General-purpose governments. This survey assembledinformation for all of the 3,034 county, 19,429 municipal,and 16,504 township governments which were in exist-ence in fiscal 2001-02. The initial data collection phaseused two methods to obtain data: mail canvass, and cen-tralized collection from state sources.

The mail canvass involved the use of detailed censusschedules with related reporting instructions. Censusexaminers reviewed the mail reports intensively and usedextensive correspondence to supplement and verifyincomplete and questionable information.

A central data collection system existed for county,municipal, or township governments in the followingstates:

COUNTIESAlaska Kansas Nevada South Carolina

Arizona Kentucky New Hampshire UtahCalifornia Maryland New York WashingtonGeorgia Michigan North Carolina WisconsinIllinois Montana North Dakota WyomingIndiana

MUNICIPALITIESAlaska Kansas Montana Oklahoma

Arizona Kentucky Nebraska PennsylvaniaCalifornia Maryland Nevada UtahGeorgia Massachusetts New Hampshire WashingtonIllinois Michigan New York WisconsinIndiana Minnesota North Carolina WyomingIowa Missouri North Dakota

TOWNSHIPSIllinois Massachusetts Missouri Pennsylvania

Indiana Michigan Nebraska WisconsinKansas Minnesota New Hampshire

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The methodology used in each instance and the extent ofthe available data varied widely. As with mail canvassquestionnaires, the basic financial data sometimes neededsupplementation for such items as debt, assets, particularfunctional expenditures, or revenue items. Census staffobtained these supplementary data from special tabula-tions in other state offices, printed reports, secondarysources, or supplemental mailings directly to the localgovernments.

School systems and education data. The educationportion of the 2002 census obtained data for all of the13,506 independent school districts and 1,508 dependentschool systems that were in existence in fiscal year 2001-02. The research conducted as part of the 2002 censusorganization phase identified the universe of public schoolsystems.

The education data came from three sources:

1. Higher education. Through an agreement with theNational Center for Education Statistics, the CensusBureau obtained financial data for higher educationinstitutions from the Integrated Postsecondary Educa-tion Data System (IPEDS).

2. Mail canvass. Statistics for elementary and secondaryschool systems in Alaska and the District of Columbiawere based on information received in response to amail canvass of individual systems. In addition,supplementary data on asset information were derivedfrom mailed requests.

3. Central collection. State education agencies conductsurveys of elementary and secondary education sys-tems that obtain finance data as part of a larger datacollection effort. A high percentage of this informationis compatible with Census Bureau categories. In aneffort to reduce respondent burden, the CensusBureau concluded a series of unique agreements withall states, except Alaska, to share their data for thissurvey.

These central collection arrangements did not always pro-vide sufficient information to meet all the needs of theCensus Bureau survey. In those instances, othersources—most often different state offices—suppliedinformation to supplement the basic data. There were fourtypes of data that regularly needed this type of supple-mentation: school lunch finances, indebtedness, cash andsecurity holdings, and capital fund transactions. The pro-cedures for incorporating these additional data with thecore information required careful planning to avoid dupli-cation or under reporting.1

Special district governments. This census surveyattempted to assemble information for all of the specialdistrict governments that were in existence in fiscal2001-02. The initial collection phase used two methods toobtain data: mail canvass and centralized collection fromstate sources. Mail questionnaires went directly to 25,740special district governments. The balance of the specialdistrict data was sought from cooperative Census Bureau-state arrangements in seven states.

The mail canvass involved the use of detailed censusschedules with related reporting instructions. Censusexaminers reviewed the mail reports intensively and usedextensive correspondence to supplement and verifyincomplete and questionable information.

A central data collection system for special district govern-ments was used to obtain data in five states—California,Illinois, New York, Utah, and Wyoming. As with mail can-vass questionnaires, census personnel examined thesecentrally collected data thoroughly and verified data eitherwith state officials or directly with local respondents. Thefollowing describes what each state central source sup-plied:

California—supplied data for 2,931 special districts. Thatwas all special district governments except for 79 in thehousing and community development function thatreceived a mail canvass questionnaire.

Illinois—initially agreed to supply data for 3,068 specialdistricts. There were 145 districts that the state could notprovide and which were mail canvassed. In a number ofinstances, the central data collection material was late orinadequate and a supplementary mail request was sent onan ad hoc basis.

New York—supplied data for 912 special districts, all fireprotection functions. The remaining New York special dis-tricts were canvassed by mail.

Utah—supplied data for all 384 special districts.

Wyoming—supplied data for all 478 special districts.

LIMITATIONS OF DATA

Although the data in a census are not subject to samplingerror, the data are subject to various nonsampling errors.For this census, these errors may include response errors,errors caused by nonresponse, and processing errors.Every effort is made to keep these errors at a minimum.

All schedules-mail canvass, those compiled by Census-trained enumerators from official sources, field enumer-ated, and centrally collected—were examined for evidenceof completeness, internal consistency, and a reasonablerelation to figures reported for earlier periods. In additionto the manual review, a computerized edit checked forimpossible or improbable entries and identified in detailthe differences with prior data.

1See the report Public Education Finances (Volume 4, No. 1,2002 Census of Governments) for a more detailed explanation ofthis central collection methodology.

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These procedures applied to the 2002 Census of Govern-ments were designed to achieve, for the data reportedhere, a high standard of completeness and accuracy.Undoubtedly, however, some mistakes and inconsistenciesof official reporting, or of Census Bureau handling of par-ticular items, have escaped detection. Please inform theGovernments Division, U.S. Census Bureau, if the tables ordata reveal potential problems.

After using the extensive follow-up efforts detailed in thedata collection section, only a minor percentage of thedata file—representing nearly all small county, municipalor township governments—remained incomplete. Only10.7 percent of counties, and 18.5 percent of the munici-palities and townships were total nonrespondents to thecensus. Imputations were done for these missing data.

For counties, municipalities and townships that failed torespond, missing data were imputed by using the mostrecently reported prior year census or annual survey data.These data were adjusted by growth rates calculated fromsimilar types of governments, i.e., in the same state, type,and about the same size. The average growth rates for thereporting governments were calculated for each group.The appropriate average growth rate was applied to thenonreporting governments prior year data to get a currentyear imputed value. For governments that failed to reportin the prior census or subsequent annual surveys, aresponding county, municipality or township from thesame group as the nonrespondent was randomly selectedand per capita values for the respondent were multipliedby the population of the nonrespondent to get imputedvalues for the nonrespondent.

For special districts, because of an initial lower responseto the mail canvass than for general purpose govern-ments, the special district government portion of the 2002Census of Governments employed secondary sources andfollowups more extensively. These efforts included using:2001 fiscal year data if they were available; the AmericanHospital Association; Mergent Municipal and GovernmentManual; and various state agencies and departments.

All imputations for special districts were done within afunction code, i.e., fire protection districts were not mixedwith library districts, etc. For units that responded in 1997but not in 2002, median growth rates (calculated fromsimilar units who responded in both 1997 and 2002) wereapplied to the nonrespondents’ 1997 data to generate2002 data. If the 2002 nonresponding special district hadno 1997 data available, a random hot-deck method wasapplied. Since most of the large special districtsresponded to the survey, these units were left out of the2002 respondent donor pool. Only 2002 special districtswith revenue or expenditure less than $5 million and debtless than $15 million were included in the pool. Only unitswith the same function code were included in the donorpool for the nonrespondents of that function code. In

other words, only small respondent library districts wereused as donors for small nonrespondent library districts.Because of extreme volatility of the data for gas supplyutilities, electric power utilities, water transportation dis-tricts, and hospital districts, prior year data were not usedfor imputations. The hot-deck method was used to imputedata for these units.

Population Data

The 2000 decennial population amounts were used in thisreport both as an exhibit and in calculating per capitaamounts in summary tables. The 2002 estimated popula-tion data were used for the county area Tables 49 to 51.The population in this census of governments volume mayvary somewhat from published reports in the populationseries because those documents exclude some data filecorrections that were processed after their reports wereprinted.

Individuals desiring more detailed information about theprecise application of this methodology should contact theGovernments Division, U.S. Census Bureau.

Review Procedures

All schedules—mail canvass, those compiled by Censustrained enumerators from official sources, and centrallycollected—were examined for evidence of completeness,internal consistency, and a reasonable relation to figuresreported for earlier periods. In addition to the manualreview, a computerized edit checked for impossible orimprobable entries and identified in detail the differenceswith prior data.

These procedures applied to the 2002 Census of Govern-ments were designed to achieve, for the data reportedhere, a high standard of completeness and accuracy.Undoubtedly, however, some mistakes and inconsistenciesof official reporting, or of Census Bureau handling of par-ticular items, have escaped detection. Please inform theGovernments Division, U.S. Census Bureau, if the tables ordata reveal potential problems.

Derivative Statistics

This report shows computations that use financial data incombination with population or personal income. Thesestatistics on ‘‘per capita’’ or ‘‘per $1,000 of personalincome’’ make excellent tools for comparative analyses,especially for state area or county area statistics. Beforeinitiating this type of study, however, refer to the portionsof this text that focus on some of the difficulties inherentin this type of comparability study—for example, theexistence of multicounty governments or the allocation ofgovernment responsibility.

Most table calculations use 2000 decennial populationdata. The county area Tables 49 and 52 were calculatedwith the 2002 populations. The 2001 calendar year per-sonal income data came from the U.S. Bureau of Economic

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Analysis, Summary Personal Income Tables 1968-2003,released September 28, 2004. Appendix E contains a statelisting of this information. In doing the arithmetic compu-tations for per capita data, all original finance amountswere rounded to the nearest thousand and populationswere in whole numbers. For the personal income calcula-tions, finance amounts were rounded to the nearest thou-sand and income amounts were rounded to the nearestmillion.

Statistical Nature of Data

Finance amounts presented in this publication are statisti-cal in nature and do not represent an accounting state-ment. Therefore, a difference between an individual gov-ernment’s total revenues and expenditures does notnecessarily indicate a ‘‘budget’’ surplus or deficit. Largecapital outlay expenditures, debt issuance or retirement,changes in cash and security holdings, or the existence ofa retirement system are all factors that might have animportant influence on the balance between revenues andexpenditures.

Interarea Comparisons

Use caution in attempting to draw conclusions from directinterstate or intergovernmental comparisons of financialamounts. Such comparisons should take into account thediversity of responsibilities for various functions amongdifferent governments. Some state governments, forexample, directly administer certain activities which else-where are undertaken by local governments, with or with-out state fiscal aid.

Even within individual states, one may observe markeddiversity in the scope of functions performed by individualgovernments or governments of a particular type. It is notunusual, for example, for one or a few large county gov-ernments to provide services that are normally handled bymunicipalities. As an example, showing a different per-spective, there are certain sizable ‘‘contract cities’’ in Cali-fornia that operate mainly through county agencies ratherthan by direct employment of personnel for the entirerange of common city functions.

Some individual governments reported here as municipali-ties operate in effect as composite city-county units. SeeAppendix B for a listing of the largest of these city-countygovernments classed as municipalities.

One variable that affects the scope and scale of govern-ment finances significantly is the placement of responsibil-ity for administration of local public schools. In moststates, this function is assigned to independent school dis-tricts. In many instances, however, including several of thelargest cities, the school system is part of the municipal,county, or township governments. Of similar nature aredifferences in state versus city, county or township

administration of public assistance programs, or of publichospital facilities and services.

Similarly, certain potential limitations should be recog-nized with regard to direct interarea comparisons basedupon the local government aggregates for individualcounty areas in Tables 50 and 51. These data represent asummation of amounts for all local governments locatedentirely or mainly within each particular county. Refer tothe previous discussion on intercounty governments foran explanation of how data for these units were assigned.Appendices F and G provide a listing of the largest inter-county municipalities and special districts.

Beyond this, the residents of a particular governmentaljurisdiction or even an entire county might not be the onlybeneficiaries of local government operations in the area.One might find, for example, that a scattered minority ofindividual county areas exhibit a relatively high level ofexpenditure for health and hospitals. This phenomenon,which occurs most frequently in sparsely populatedstates, is due to arrangements by which public hospitalsin one county actually serve a group of counties. Anothercircumstance occurring with increasing frequency in urbanareas is the establishment of solid waste processing facili-ties, operated by a single county or municipality but pro-viding service to a wide area.

Relation to Historic Data

In general, the statistics presented here closely parallel inconcepts, coverage, and classification the data in corre-sponding reports (Vol. 4, No. 5) in other quinquennial can-vasses. Financial statistics for the federal governmentwere not included in the 2002 report. For a detailed com-parative analysis, however, take into account changessuch as legal shifts in responsibility for certain activitiesand economic fluctuations. An especially important factorto consider is the recent rapid growth of special districts:

Census yearNumber of

special districts

1962 18,3231967 21,2641972 23,8851977 25,9621982 28,0781987 29,4271992 31,5551997 34,6832002 35,052

AVAILABILITY OF DATA

Copies of Volume 4, No. 5, Compendium of GovernmentFinances, and other reports of the 2002 Census of Govern-ments are available from the Superintendent of Docu-ments, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC20302 and U.S. Department of Commerce District Offices.

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This report will also be available in electronic form atwww.census.gov/prod/www/abs/govern.html. For details,contact the Governments Division, U.S. Census Bureau,Washington DC 20233, or telephone 800-242-2184.

MEANING OF SYMBOLS

The symbols in the tables have the following meanings:

– Represents zero or round to zero.NA Not available.X Not applicable.

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Table 1. Summary of State and Local Government Finances: 1986�87 and 2001�02[For meaning of abbreviations and symbols, see introductory text. Detail may not add to total because of rounding]

Item

Amount (million dollars) Per capita

2001�02 1996�97 1991�92 1986�87 2001�02 1996�97 1991�92 1986�87

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

REVENUE

Revenue 1,807,573����������������������������� 1,616,495 1,189,987 843,879 6,276.86 5,928.89 4,665.12 3,466.77

General revenue 1,684,776������������������������������ 1,289,237 979,137 686,860 5,850.44 4,728.60 3,838.52 2,821.72From federal government 360,534��������������������� 244,847 179,174 114,857 1,251.97 898.04 702.42 471.85Taxes 904,971�������������������������������������� 728,304 559,859 404,803 3,142.55 2,671.23 2,194.82 1,662.99

Property 279,122���������������������������������� 218,877 180,337 121,203 969.26 802.79 706.98 497.92Sales and gross receipts 324,040������������������� 261,418 197,731 144,091 1,125.24 958.82 775.17 591.95Individual income 202,858�������������������������� 159,042 115,638 83,935 704.43 583.33 453.34 344.82Corporation net income 28,152�������������������� 33,820 23,880 22,425 97.76 124.04 93.62 92.12Other taxes 70,800������������������������������� 55,146 42,273 33,150 245.86 202.26 165.72 136.19

Charges and miscellaneous revenue 419,270����������� 316,087 240,103 167,200 1,455.93 1,159.33 941.28 686.88

Utility and liquor store revenue 107,387������������������ 78,186 63,240 50,168 372.91 286.77 247.92 206.10

Insurance trust revenue 15,410������������������������ 249,072 147,610 106,850 53.51 913.53 578.68 438.96Unemployment compensation 27,086����������������� 34,780 27,019 18,925 94.06 127.56 105.92 77.75Employee retirement �29,261������������������������� 199,655 105,853 79,491 �101.61 732.28 414.98 326.56Other insurance trust revenue 17,586����������������� 14,637 14,738 8,434 61.07 53.68 57.78 34.65

EXPENDITURE

Expenditure 2,048,719�������������������������� 1,460,561 1,156,781 777,045 7,114.25 5,356.97 4,534.94 3,192.21

By character and object:To federal government 4,387����������������������� 3,863 3,632 2,455 15.24 14.17 14.24 10.09Current operation 1,497,216���������������������������� 1,068,783 828,424 551,091 5,199.14 3,920.02 3,247.68 2,263.96Capital outlay 257,214������������������������������� 171,414 136,520 98,842 893.18 628.70 535.20 406.06

Construction 197,629������������������������������ 130,475 102,294 74,162 686.27 478.55 401.02 304.67Equipment, land, and existing structures 59,585������ 40,938 34,226 24,679 206.91 150.15 134.18 101.39

Assistance and subsidies 33,282��������������������� 33,455 32,976 23,466 115.57 122.71 129.28 96.40Interest on debt 86,948����������������������������� 71,922 65,014 50,387 301.93 263.79 254.88 207.00Insurance benefits and repayments 169,672������������ 111,124 90,215 50,804 589.19 407.57 353.67 208.71Exhibit: Expenditure for salaries and wages 610,879����� 468,947 383,323 274,734 2,121.30 1,719.98 1,502.75 1,128.65

By function:General expenditure 1,735,196������������������������� 1,249,984 981,253 657,134 6,025.53 4,584.62 3,846.81 2,699.60

Current expenditure 1,508,221����������������������� 1,098,687 862,597 573,944 5,237.35 4,029.71 3,381.65 2,357.84Capital outlay 226,975����������������������������� 151,297 118,656 83,190 788.18 554.92 465.17 341.76

Education services:Education 594,591�������������������������������� 418,416 324,652 226,619 2,064.74 1,534.64 1,272.74 930.98Libraries 8,257���������������������������������� 6,230 4,713 3,298 28.67 22.85 18.48 13.55

Social services and income maintenance:Public welfare 283,885����������������������������� 203,779 158,723 82,650 985.80 747.41 622