NA Not available.
1 Includes employees outside the United States.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Statistics on Governmental Finances and Employment, and Public Employment, series GE, No. 1, annual.


http://www.census.gov/govs/www/apes.html *DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS OF SELECTEDTERMS

GOVERNMENT UNITS AND TYPESOF GOVERNMENTS

Government units. A government is an organized entity whosegovernmental character is evidenced by popular election of theofficials or their appointment by public officials, a high degreeof public accountability, and the power to raise revenue toprovide authorized services. In addition, a government unitmust have sufficient discretion in the management of its ownaffairs to distinguish it from the administrative structure of any
other government unit.1

Federal Government. The term Federal encompasses all civilianemployees and payrolls of the U.S. Government, including thelegislative and judicial branches and all departments andindependent agencies of the executive branch. Excluded arethe uniformed employees and payrolls of the armed forces. District of Columbia data are excluded from this category andincluded with data for municipalities.

State governments. This category refers to the governments ofthe 50 states which constitute the United States. The stategovernment in each case consists of the legislative, executive,and judicial branches of government and all departments,boards, commissions, institutions of higher education, andother organizational units. It also includes any semi-autonomousauthorities , districts, and other agencies that are subject toadministrative and fiscal control by the state through itsappointment of officers, determination of budgets, approvalof plans, and other devices.

Local governments. The Bureau of the Census classifies localgovernments by five major types -- county, municipal,township, school district, and special district. Following is abrief discussion of each type of local government:

County -- Organized county governments are foundthroughout the Nation except in Connecticut, theDistrict of Columbia, Rhode Island, and limited portionsof a few other states. These governments are legallydesignated as "boroughs" in Alaska and "parishes" inLouisiana. Excluded from county government statisticsand included with municipalities or townships arecertain local governments that combine area andgovernmental characteristics of both counties andmunicipalities or townships.

Municipal -- A municipality is a political subdivisionwithin which a municipal corporation has beenestablished to provide general local governmentservices for a specific population concentration in adefined area. A municipality may be legally termed acity, village, borough (except in Alaska), or town(except in the six New England States, Minnesota, NewYork, and Wisconsin). Included in this category arecertain cities that are completely or substantiallyconsolidated with their county governments, operateoutside the geographic limits of any county, or for otherreasons have no organized county governmentoperations within their boundaries. Comprising thisgroup are the following cities: Anaconda (MT),Anchorage (AK), Athens (GA), Baltimore (MD), BatonRouge (LA), Boston (MA), Butte (MT), Carson City (NV),Columbus (GA), Denver (CO), Honolulu (HI), Houma(LA), Indianapolis (IN), Jacksonville (FL), Juneau (AK),Lexington (KY), Lynchburg (TN), Nashville (TN), NewOrleans (LA), New York (NY), Philadelphia (PA), St.Louis (MO), Sitka (AK), San Francisco (CA), andWashington, DC, as well as the "independent cities" inVirginia. Nantucket, MA is included with townships.

Township -- Township governments, as distinguishedfrom municipalities, are created to serve inhabitants ofareas defined without regard to populationconcentration. This classification is applied to localgovernments in 20 states, including government unitsofficially designated "towns" in the six New Englandstates, New York, and Wisconsin; some "plantations" inMaine; and "locations" in New Hampshire. InMinnesota, the terms "town" and "township" are usedinterchangeably with reference to townshipgovernments.

School district -- There is a marked organizationaldiversity in the types of government units that providefor the operation of public schools. School districts,which are government entities that are fiscally andadministratively independent of any other government,are found in all but five States (Alaska, Hawaii,Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia) and the Districtof Columbia. Dependent school systems areadministrative agencies of other governments (State,county, municipal, or township) and are not counted asseparate government entities by the Bureau of theCensus. Dependent school systems are foundexclusively in the District of Columbia and the fivestates noted above and also exist in 12 other states.

Special district -- Special districts are local governmentunits created to provide specific services that are notbeing supplied by other governments. Thesegovernment units are known by a variety of titlesincluding districts, authorities, boards, andcommissions. A majority of special districts areestablished to perform a single function, but some havebeen given authority to provide several, usually related,kinds of services.

SUBJECT MATTER CONCEPTS

Employment and employees. Employment refers to all personsgainfully employed by and performing services for agovernment. Employees include all persons paid for personalservices performed, including persons paid from Federallyfunded programs, paid elected or appointed officials, persons ina paid leave status, and persons paid on a per meeting, annual,semiannual, or quarterly basis. Unpaid officials, pensioners,persons whose work is performed on a fee basis, andcontractors and their employees are excluded from the count ofemployees. Full-time employees are defined to include thosepersons whose hours of work represent full-time employment intheir employer government; part-time employees are thosepersons who work less than the standard number of hours forfull-time work in their employer government.

Full-time equivalent employment. A computed statisticrepresenting the number of full-time employees that could havebeen employed if the reported number of hours worked by part-timeemployees had been worked by full-time employees. Thisstatistic is calculated separately for each function of agovernment by dividing the "part-time hours paid" by thestandard number of hours for full-time employees in theparticular government and then adding the resulting quotient tothe number of full-time employees.

October payroll. Payroll amounts represent gross payrolls forthe 1-month period of October (31 days). The gross payrollincludes all salaries, wages, fees, commissions, bonuses, orawards paid to employees during the pay period which includedthe date of October 12. Payroll amounts reported for a periodother than 1 month were converted to represent an amount forthe month of October.

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