Two new interactive data tools launched this month to help researchers interested in analyzing municipal and local government budgets. Below is an overview of both tools and examples of how each can be used to further state and local policy research.

Ohio Checkbook

The Ohio Checkbook website launched last month, providing citizens a comprehensive view of both local and state financial information. Information on the site was consolidated from pervious interactive tools of the offices of the Ohio Lt. Governor and the Ohio Treasurer. While local government participation is optional, the site features financial information for 45 counties and 336 cities and villages, as well as townships, schools, special districts, and universities.

The fully interactive website puts information on the state budget at a user’s fingertips, allowing Ohioans to explore revenues, expenses, and debt financing. At the state level, revenues and expenditures can be filtered by agency, fund, or budget fund group and viewed for all state fiscal years from 2011-2021. You can also view pre-prepared graphics that outline major state revenue and funding allocations. For example, see the graph below detailing historical and current balance of the Ohio Budget Stabilization Fund, also known as the state’s rainy-day fund.

Fiscally Standardized Cities Database

The Fiscally Standardized Cities (FiSC) database was launched by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to address the many problems inherent in comparing local government finances. For starters, public services are not delivered in the same way across all cities.  Several layers of government may service overlapping, yet distinct geographies without consistent boundaries.  These include: school districts, library and utility districts, counties, and special districts.  The Fiscally Standardized Cities Database standardizes these expenses making comparative analysis possible.

FiSCs provide a full, though approximated, picture of local government finances by adding revenues and expenditures from city governments to an appropriate share of spending from overlying counties, school districts, and special districts. Shares of spending from overlying jurisdictions are typically allocated based on the number of city residents living within the district; for example, if city residents make up 32% of a county’s total population, the database attributes 32% of the county’s total spending to the FiSC. The FiSC database makes it possible to compare local government finances for 150 of the largest U.S. cities across more than 120 categories of revenues, expenditures, debt, and assets for all years between 1977 and 2017. For Ohio, that includes data for the six largest cities: Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Toledo.

The FiSC database is useful for to look at government budgets over time. For example, the interactive web tool is able to produce a table for the City of Toledo detailing revenue sources by year. Below, general revenue for 2017 is broken out by source, including state and federal aid (under Intergovernmental Revenue), and Own Source Revenue, which includes revenue from taxes, charges, and special assessments.

When graphed, data from the FiSC database show that state aid to the City of Toledo has been decreasing over the past 7 years, while the city’s share of general revenue has had to increased.

The FiSC database was constructed using information from the individual unit of government files produced by the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau.  

Image Courtesy of the Toledo Blade