Get county government revenues and expenditures
get_government_finances.RdRetrieves county government revenues and expenditures over time.
Value
A dataframe containing county government-level revenues and expenditures by year. All monetary values are in thousands of dollars.
- year
Year of the financial data.
- GEOID
Five-digit county FIPS code.
- county_name
Name of the county.
- revenue_total
Total county revenue.
- revenue_general
General revenue (excludes utilities, liquor stores, social insurance).
- revenue_tax_total
Total tax revenue.
- revenue_tax_property
Property tax revenue.
- revenue_tax_sales
Sales and gross receipts tax revenue.
- revenue_tax_income
Income tax revenue.
- revenue_intergovernmental_total
Total intergovernmental transfers received.
- revenue_intergovernmental_federal
Federal intergovernmental transfers.
- revenue_intergovernmental_state
State intergovernmental transfers.
- revenue_charges_total
Total charges and miscellaneous general revenue.
- revenue_utility_total
Utility revenue.
- expenditure_total
Total county expenditures.
- expenditure_general
General expenditures.
- expenditure_capital_outlay
Capital outlay spending.
- expenditure_construction
Construction spending.
- expenditure_salaries_wages
Salaries and wages.
- expenditure_intergovernmental
Intergovernmental transfers paid.
- expenditure_education_total
Education spending.
- expenditure_public_safety
Police protection spending.
- expenditure_health_hospitals
Health spending.
- expenditure_highways
Highway spending.
- expenditure_public_welfare
Public welfare spending.
- expenditure_utility_total
Utility expenditures.
Details
Data are from the U.S. Census Bureau's Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances and Census of Governments, compiled per: Pierson K., Hand M., and Thompson F. (2015). The Government Finance Database: A Common Resource for Quantitative Research in Public Financial Analysis. PLoS ONE doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130119. See https://my.willamette.edu/site/mba/public-datasets.
This is a survey in most years–i.e., only a subset of the full population of governments comprises the sampling frame–but is a true census with relatively high response rates (90%%+) in years ending in 2 and 7.
Definitions of key constructs:
Revenues
General revenue: All revenue not arising from utilities, liquor stores, or social insurance.
Intergovernmental revenue: Transfers from federal, state, or other local governments.
Current charges: Fees collected for providing services.
Expenditures
General expenditure: All spending except utilities, liquor stores, or social insurance.
Capital outlay: Spending on construction and equipment.