Deficiencies in State and Local Government Data
| Author | Edward R. Gray |
| Date | 01 January 1940 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271624020700125 |
| Published date | 01 January 1940 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
194
Deficiencies
in
State
and
Local
Government
Data
By
EDWARD
R.
GRAY
DEFICIENCIES
in
current
data
on
state
and
local
governments
are
of
two
varieties.
First
and
most
simply,
there
may
be
no
data
at
all.
Secondly,
there
may
be
information
that
is
lacking
in
significance,
comparability,
timeliness,
or
accessibility.
Nearly
every
type
of
information
that
should
be
available
in
an
ideal
reporting
system,
in
which
com-
parable
data
on
the
most
significant
gov-
ernmental
activities
and
financial
trans-
actions
would
be
published
promptly
by
centralized
agencies,
is
now
deficient
in
one
of
these
senses,
for
at
least
some
governmental
units.
To
catalogue
the
few
adequate
reports
would
be
easier
than
to
enumerate
the
deficiencies
and
the
places
where
no
reports
exist.
At
present,
some
cities,
counties,
and
other
local
governments
have
their
own
excellent
centralized,
informative,
an-
nual
reports.
In
a
few
states,
financial
reports
of
at
least
some
types
of
local
governments
are
relatively
comparable
with
one
another,
and
the
state
compiles
a
reasonably
adequate
summary
of
them.
Some
states
also
have
excellent
centralized
financial
and
activity
re-
ports.
A
few
public
and
private
agen-
cies,
including
the
Federal
Bureau
of
the
Census,
compile
annual
financial
data
on
a
comparable
basis
for
states
and
large
cities.
Organizations
of
public
officials
publish
information
of
particu-
lar
interest
to
themselves.
Certain
com-
mercial
firms
analyze
debt
issues,
state
tax
legislation,
and
some
construction
and
public-service-enterprise
activity.
This
list
of
relatively
satisfactory
com-
pilations
could
be
extended
to
include
only
a
limited
number
of
other
current
reports.
On
the other
hand,
obvious
defi-
ciencies
are
enormous
and
challenging.
Most
local
governments
do
not
have
adequate
centralized
reports.
Most
states
do
not
attempt
to
have
their
local
governments
produce
even
financial
re-
ports
on
a
comparable
basis,
or
to
col-
lect
and
publish
extracts
from
such
re-
ports.
And
where
states
do
publish
financial
summaries
of
their
local
gov-
ernments,
these
data
are
not
comparable
between
states.
Furthermore,
nonfinan-
cial
information
(on
purchases,
employ-
ees,
construction,
elections,
physical
plant,
and
other
matters)
is
in
a
dis-
tinctly
rudimentary
stage,
where
it
exists
at
all.
Fiscal
years
end
on
many
differ-
ent
days
in
the
year.
The
few
suitable
reports
that
are
published
usually
ap-
pear
from
one
to
three
years
after
the
period
of
the
information,
and
are
fre-
quently
expensive
and
inaccessible.
NEW
NEEDS
INCREASE
DEFICIENCIES
Yet
the
need
for
adequate
current
in-
formation
is
more
urgently
felt
now
than
ever
before.
The
World
War’s
after-
math
of
economic
disturbances
increased
the
scale
of
social
problems,
brought
about
a
redistribution
of
financial
bur-
dens
among
Federal,
state,
and
local
governments,
and
upset
the
rather
rigid
jurisdictional
lines
theretofore
existing
between
the
different
&dquo;layers&dquo;
of
public
agencies.
Precedents
established
with
difficulty
and
persistent
effort
in
the
past,
such
as
co-operation
between
dif-
ferent
governmental
levels
in
agricul-
tural
education,
have
been
followed
rap-
idly
and
easily
in
other
types
of
activity.
Cities
have
become
more
independent
of
both
states
and
counties,
and
the
influ-
ence
of
the
Federal
Government
has
been
more
directly
felt
in
state
and
local
affairs.
To
understand
the
changes
that
have
been
taking
place
and
the
effect
of
innovations
upon
governmental
organ-
ization
in
the
country
as
a
whole,
cur-
at SAGE PUBLICATIONS on November 29, 2012ann.sagepub.comDownloaded from
To continue reading
Request your trial