Today government finance, public pensions, education spending, and taxes are hot issues and in the information age – where information is readily available and more easily monitored and measured – statistics tell the stories.

2009 State and Local Government Expenditures

The U.S. Census Bureau’s Governments Division collects data on federal, state and local government and constantly researches new ways to make data collection more efficient and the data more precise.

On March 15, 2012, the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics held a workshop on censuses and surveys of governments. Attendees at the conference included representatives from academia, the private sector, several federal statistical agencies, and members of a 2007 Committee on National Statistics panel on government statistics.

Governments Division staff presented their research, as well as planned research, on a host of topics. We believe many readers will find this research to be of interest:

Small Area Estimates for Government Surveys (Bac Tran) – uses decision-based estimation as a newly developed statistical technique to improve the precision of small area estimates.
The Government Master Address File and Government Units Survey: What We Have Learned and Implemented (Debra Coaxum and Rachelle Reeder) – outlines the development of the Government Master Address File, which will house the universe of state and local governments and their dependent agencies and the Government Units Survey, which is part of the 2012 Census of Governments.
QuIP Trips – What Are They And How Are They Helping Us Improve Sampling Frame Coverage? (Joshuah S. Latimore) – explains how Quality Improvement Program (QuIP) trips are designed to improve coverage, test questionnaires and content, conduct nonresponse follow-up, and to reach out to the State Data Centers.
The Implementation of Dashboards in Governments Division Surveys (Terri L. Craig) – discusses the development and use of dashboards to guide nonresponse follow-up.
Using Paradata to Improve Questionnaire Design and Operations (Aneesah Williams) – describes the various types of paradata and their benefit when applied to survey processing and the division’s plans to research and incorporate paradata into its processes.
Visualizing Data from Government Census and Surveys: Plans for the Future (Kerstin Edwards) –describes the division’s methods for communicating information about the data on state and local governments.
Progress on Presenting Derived Statistics and Coefficients of Variation (Carma Hogue) – includes derived statistics, which estimate rate of change, rankings and comparison statistics.
Progress on the Committee on National Statistics Recommendations (Carma Hogue) –improvements in Governments data dissemination and quality as a result of recommendations from the Committee on National Statistics.