By law all counties, cities, and special districts in California must submit a standard report to the State Controller. The statutory authority is codified in the California Government Code, Section 53890-53897. In addition, the United States Census gathers financial and statistical data for all governments, state and local.
The Controller's office creates an annual report which in the past was reported in four printed series: Cities, Counties, School Districts and Special Districts. The California State Library is a government document depository. The library houses printed reports from the late 1950s to the present. On the Web, the Controller's office has placed the last ten years of reports, and has added series of reports as well. These annual reports, include: Cities, Counties, Public Retirement Systems, Redevelopment Agencies, School Districts, Special Districts, Streets and Roads, Transit Operators and Non-Transit Claimants, and Transportation Planning Agencies.
The California State Controller specifies the format and accounting methodology for the reports, so they are published based on data collected in a uniform manner. Not only are the statistical reports uniform from city to city, they are also gathered in the same manner each year, providing longitudinal consistency.
As a service, the Controller also provides California local governments with the required forms for the US Census survey of governments. The US Census gathers these forms and publishes a Census of Government every five years. Within the last few years the US Census has developed Web tools to create custom reports from their governmental census. This is particularly useful in comparing the relative size of the public workforce in one place versus another and provides a means to create benchmarks for fiscal performance across state boundaries.
Bibliorati says -- for that fiscal report, another tool in the policy toolbox.
