NOTES

The following are some additional notes on the database used in this report.

Pensions

While the census of governments does not allow pension contributions to be tabulated as expenditures, they are tabulated as revenues for pensions systems, using the state file REX1. In revenues, code X04 is local contributions to local pension systems, code X05 is local contributions to state systems, and code X06 is state contributions to state systems. In NY State, only NYC has its own pension system, so the figures in code X04 can be assumed to apply to it alone. Thus, it is possible to distinguish New York State pension contributions, local government contributions in NYC, and local government contributions in the rest of the state. Local government figures for state and local government can be separated this way for other states as well, but there are errors. In Maine, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and North Carolina, some pension contributions for local employees appear to be accounted for as state to state contributions. Nonetheless, by using these columns from the census of governments, it is possible to get a rough measure of the burden of public employee pensions in different states, and in New York City and the Rest of the State.

The "X" fields are not included in the county files, so it is not possible to determine local pension contributions for different parts of the state outside NYC using the census of governments. After direction from the census bureau, pension contributions for the state were obtained from the Annual Report of the NYC Comptroller (for the City pension systems) and the Office of the State Comptroller (for state pension systems). In the files used in this report, 1997 New York State data was taken from the original sources rather than the census (although data for a few small Upstate county governments is missing from the state data).

Capital Spending, Interest and Debt

A review of the data found that the Census Bureau had been adding capital spending from two different NYC Comptroller reports to their data, in effect counting New York City’s capital spending twice. The error was made in data for FY 1996, 1997, and 1998. The data is corrected in the files used in this report (see subtractions in the source files).

As a result of a typographic error identified in the preparation of this report, the interest on debt of local governments in Orange (NY) county was overstated. It is corrected in the data presented here, and will be corrected in the Census Bureau database

Hospital Revenues and Expenditures

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation books the money owned by patients who do not pay (ie. those without private health insurance, not paying in cash, and not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid) as revenues, then books an equal “provision for bad debt” as an expenditure. The Census Bureau accepted the revenue figure, but deducted the "provision for bad debt” amount - $542 million - from expenditures, because it requires accounting on a cash basis. The HHC, therefore, ended up with a “profit” in Census of Governments tabulations. The $542 million, therefore, should not have been included in revenues, so the author deducted it from NYC, the state local government total, the state plus local government total, the national local government total, and the national state plus local government total, for 1997. The fix could not be made for all past years, as data is unavailable.

Also, NYC economic development agencies also have a reserve for bad debt. It may have caused the same problem.

A review of the data found that Allegany County NY’s county contribution to the state’s Medicaid program was not recorded. The error occurred in the New York State Comptroller’s data. It is being corrected in Albany and Washington.

Transport

The census bureau still counts the NYC Transit Authority, Triborogh Bridge and Tunnel Authority, and SI Transit as local government agencies, while counting almost all other transit in New York State as state agencies. But the City’s aid payments for station maintenance are counted as city transfers to the state MTA, then perhaps as state transfers back to the City Transit Authority. All operations of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are counted as NYC local government activities.

The dedicated MTA taxes, including the corporate income tax, sales tax, mortgage recording tax, and telephone tax, are merely lumped into state revenues by the census bureau, even though they are only collected in the Metropolitan Transportation District. Moreover, NYC parking tickets are not identified as transportation revenues.

In most of the country, transit utilities are counted as local government, but in New Jersey, they area also counted as state government. According to Governments Division officials, in FY 1997, New Jersey Transit failed to fill out its census employment forms correctly, and only reported a few hundred administrative jobs. The Census Bureau’s 1998 data, which was reported correctly, is used instead.

Interest

Interest on general debt is summarized as a single line item, except that utility debt (water, electric, gas, transit) is reported separately. In New York State, however, much of the debt of public authorities has been used to fund the operating expenditures of other agencies, through a diversion of funds. The amount of debt and interest payments associated with a particular spending priority, therefore, bears little relation to the relative importance of that priority in New York. Therefore, this database tabulates all interest payments together, to evaluate the relative priority of the present/past and the future in different places in general.

The fact that interest payments are not included in Housing and Community Development expenditure, but federal aid dedicated solely to covering interest on subsidized housing is included in Housing and Community Development revenue, distorts net state and local spending in this category.