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Reference Documents

Government Finance & Employment Classification Manual

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Did you know?

There were 90,107 governments in the U.S. in 2012, up from 89,527 in 2007.

2012 Census of Governments

The Census of Governments identifies the scope and nature of the nation's state and local government sector; provides authoritative benchmark figures of public finance and public employment; classifies local government organizations, powers, and activities; and measures federal, state, and local fiscal relationships.

The data are available by:

level of government (state, local, or state and local combined),
type of government (state, county, city, township, special district, school district), and
category of governmental activity (more about governmental activities).

Lists & Structure of Governments

2012 Summary Report (PDF, 524KB)

2012 Census of Governments Organization Tables: Final 2012 Individual State Descriptions [PDF, 1,306MB] Explains how each state is organized inot the different types of local governments. Explains how governments' responsibilities and authority vary from state to state, or within a state.	Click map to view

2012 Census of Governments Organization Tables: Final

2012 Individual State Descriptions [PDF, 1,306MB]

Explains how each state is organized inot the different types of local governments.
Explains how governments' responsibilities and authority vary from state to state, or within a state.

Click map to view

Government Employment & Payroll

The Employment component was mailed March 2012 to collect information on the number of state and local government civilian employees and their payrolls.

Data on the number of federal, state, and local government civilian employees and their gross payrolls were released on March 6, 2014.
Forms and information collected

Government Finance

The Finance Component, with the most up to date data on revenues, expenditures, assets, debt, and pensions, was released on December 16, 2014.

Forms and Information collected

Revenue, spending, assets, and debt for:

State Tax collections data (one part of state government revenues) were released on April 11, 2013.
The rest of state government finances were released on January 23, 2014.

All governments within the state, including local governments were released on December 16, 2014.

Public school finance data were released on May 22, 2014.
Government employee pensions:

State government pensions data were released August 1, 2013.
State and local government pensions data were released April 29, 2014.

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