JEE EXTRACTS DEFINITIONS OF TERMS AND CONCEPTS Following is a glossary of terms and concepts used in the JEE Extracts program and comments regarding their limitations. These definitions are based largely on those used in the U.S. Census Bureau's governmental finances and employment statistics program. The justice functional definitions were developed for the original surveys of Justice Expenditure and Employment (JEE Surveys) and, as described in the "Differences in operational definitions" section of JEECOMP.TXT ("Comparability Issues Between the JEE Survey and the JEE Extracts Programs") on this zip archive, the justice definitions cannot always be fully operationally implemented in the JEE Extracts series. These terms are grouped into five categories: -- governmental units and types of governments -- population -- governmental expenditure -- governmental employment -- governmental functions. These data are preliminary and subject to change. They will be superseded by data released approximately a year from their initial publications. Federal data are updated for two years after the initial preliminary release. Although every effort is made to obtain financial information from state and local government entities, financial statements and completed questionnaires may not be available at the time the Census Bureau closes the processing. Missing data are imputed until complete data are obtained. GOVERNMENTAL UNITS AND TYPES OF GOVERNMENTS A government is an organized entity characterized by popular election of the officials or their appointment by public officials, a high degree of public accountability, and the power to raise revenue to provide authorized services. In addition, a governmental unit must have sufficient discretion in the management of its own affairs to distinguish it from the administrative structure of any other governmental unit. For detailed information concerning the identification and classification of governments, see U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Governmental Organization, 2002 Census of Governments," Vol. 1, No. 2, GC02(1)-2, 2005, or at http://www.census.gov/govs/. Federal government. The term federal encompasses all activities of the United States Government other than employment of the Armed Forces. District of Columbia data are excluded from this category and included with data for municipalities. State governments. This category refers to the governments of the 50 states that constitute the United States. Local governments. Census Bureau classifies local governments by five major types: -- county -- municipality -- township -- independent school district -- special district. Counties. Organized county governments are found throughout the nation except in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Rhode Island, and limited portions of a few other states. These governments are legally designated as boroughs in Alaska and parishes in Louisiana. Excluded from county government statistics and included with municipalities or townships are certain local governments that combine area and governmental characteristics of both counties and municipalities or townships. Municipalities and townships. Municipalities as used in the JEE Extracts program includes two of the Census Bureau's separate classes of local governments -- municipalities and townships. A municipality is a political subdivision within which a municipal corporation has been established to provide general local government services for a specific population concentration in a defined area. A municipality may be legally termed a city, village, borough (except in Alaska), or town (except in the New England states, Minnesota, New York, and Wisconsin). Included in this category are certain cities that are completely or substantially consolidated with their county governments, operate outside the geographic limits of any county, or for other reasons have no organized county government operations within their boundaries. In the individual city tables, certain cities displayed are either independent, being wholly outside any county area, or operate entirely or in part as a consolidated city-county government. These governments are classified as municipalities by the Census Bureau and are included as municipalities in the tables presenting data by type of government. In general, these cities are more similar to large counties than to other large cities in the scope of their justice responsibilities; that is, in addition to police protection, which is the primary justice function of most municipalities, these cities also operate extensive judicial and correctional systems and may have significant public defense expenditures. The annual JEE Extracts tables 15-17 and 20 display data for the independent cities of Washington, D.C. (which also has state-type responsibilities); Baltimore, MD; and St. Louis, MO, and for the consolidated city-county governments of San Francisco, CA; Denver, CO; Jacksonville, FL; Honolulu, HI; Indianapolis, IN; Baton Rouge and New Orleans, LA; Boston, MA; New York City, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and Nashville-Davidson,TN. Townships, as distinguished from municipalities, are created to serve inhabitants of areas defined without regard to population concentration. This classification is applied to local governments in 20 states, including government units officially designated as towns in the 6 New England states, New York, and Wisconsin; some plantations in Maine; and some locations in New Hampshire. In Minnesota the terms town and township are used interchangeably. Data for townships are included under the municipalities category. Independent school districts. These governments are organized local entities providing public elementary, secondary, or higher education, which, under state law, have sufficient administration and fiscal autonomy to qualify as separate governments. Excluded are dependent public school systems of county, municipal, township, or state governments. Justice data are not collected for these independent school districts because these governments generally perform no justice functions. However, data for these governments are included in the denominator when justice expenditure is presented as a percentage of all government expenditure to allow comparisons across states and governments that make varying use of these districts. Special districts. These are organized local entities (other than counties, municipalities, townships, and school districts) authorized by state law to provide a limited number of designated functions and with sufficient autonomy to qualify as separate governments. They are known by a variety of names, including districts, authorities, boards, and commissions. Justice data are only collected for these districts where their primary purpose is either law enforcement or corrections. Data for these governments are included in the denominator when justice expenditure is presented as a percentage of all government expenditure to allow comparisons across states and governments that make varying use of these districts. POPULATION The resident population data used are for July 1 of each year from the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports. They are consistent with the 1990 and 2000 decennial enumerations, and they do not include adjustments for census coverage errors. They are the most current estimates available when the tables were assembled. The data in the trend tables may differ from population data used in single year tables earlier in this series and in other sources that used estimates available at the time they were prepared. GOVERNMENTAL EXPENDITURE Expenditure is all amounts of money paid out (net of recoveries and any correcting transactions) other than for retirement of debt (including interest), investment in securities, extensions of loans, or agency transactions. It includes only external cash payments and excludes any intragovernmental transfers and noncash transactions, such as the provision of meals or housing of employees. It also includes any payments financed from borrowing, fund balances, intergovernmental revenue, and other current revenue. In several instances, two or more governments share the expense of maintaining a court or a justice agency. In these cases, the allowable direct expenditure amount is reported for each government in the appropriate category. When a government pays pensions directly to retired employees from appropriated funds, such payments are included as expenditure of the government concerned. However, state and local government contributions to retirement systems they operate are not included in expenditure data, because many governments make lump-sum contributions to plans covering all government employees and cannot report separately for justice employees. Neither in governments' basic accounting records (from which criminal justice expenditure figures are drawn) nor in the records of their general-coverage employee benefit systems is there usually any breakdown of amounts contributed in terms of the various agencies or functions involved. Nor has an adequate procedure for calculating the proportion of such contributions allocable to justice employees been developed because of the wide variation in the coverage of various plans, employee status requirements, benefit rates, and so forth. Expenditure is divided into major categories by character and object as follows: Direct expenditure is all expenditure except thoes classified as intergovernmental and is further divided into two categories: -- Direct current includes salaries, wages, fees, commissions, and the purchase of supplies, materials, and contractual services. -- Capital outlay includes expenditure for the three object categories of construction, equipment, and purchase of land and existing structures. Data are presented separately in the JEE Extracts program for state construction of correctional institutions; the other category in those tables includes equipment and the purchase of land and existing structures. Construction: The production of fixed works and structures, as well as additions, replacements, and major alterations thereto undertaken either on a contract basis by private contractors or through force account construction by the employees of the government. Included are the planning and designing of specific projects; grading, landscaping, and other site improvement; and providing equipment and facilities that are integral parts of the structure. Equipment: The purchase and installation of apparatus, furnishings, office equipment, motor vehicles, and the like having an expected life of more than 5 years. This includes both additional equipment and replacements. Rentals for equipment, including rental payments that may be credited on the purchase price if purchase options are exercised, are classified as direct current expenditure. Equipment and facilities that are integral parts of constructed structures are classified under construction. Purchase of land and existing structures: Purchase of these assets as such, purchase of rights-of-way, title search, and similar activities associated with purchase transactions. Expenditure for interest on general debt, assistance and subsidies, and insurance benefits are not applied to specific functions because they are not ordinarily available on a functional basis from government financial reports. In instances where bonded or mortgaged general indebtedness is identified for specific purposes, the interest payments are aggregated with other interest expenditures, which makes reliable and consistent breakouts of such data over a long period of time impossible. Intergovernmental expenditure comprises payments from one government to another, including grants-in-aid, shared revenues, fiscal assistance, and amounts for services performed by one government for another on a reimbursable or cost-sharing basis (e.g., payments by one government to another for boarding prisoners). It excludes amounts paid to other governments for purchase of commodities, property, or utility services; any tax imposed and paid as such; and employer contributions for social insurance (e.g., contributions to the fFederal gGovernment for old-age, survivors', disability, and health insurance and local government payments to state-operated retirement systems on behalf of their employees). Total expenditure is direct and intergovernmental expenditure of a government or type of government. In the expenditure tables, certain totals have been adjusted to exclude duplicative intergovernmental expenditure amounts. For example, money paid by a state government to a county government within that state is reported by the state government as an intergovernmental expenditure and by the county government as a direct expenditure when the money is spent (for salaries, wages, equipment, and so forth). Therefore, to arrive at a combined state-local government total that does not duplicate these transactions, intergovernmental expenditure amounts are deducted from the state-local total, because those amounts also are reflected in the direct expenditure of the recipient government. The same treatment is used for intergovernmental payments between counties and municipalities within the same state when computing local totals. Totals reported for all governments also are adjusted to exclude duplicative intergovernmental expenditure involving the federal government. The column labeled total direct expenditure in the JEE Extracts table 3 presents data for all government functions, including justice and nonjustice activities. The comparable tables for the 1971-79 JEE Survey reports limited these columns to general expenditure, which excluded utility system expenditure, liquor store expenditure, and insurance trust expenditure. The change to the all-inclusive total expenditure category was made in 1982 to allow comparison of justice expenditure with all government spending. Comparable data for all years can be found in annual Census Bureau Governmental Finances reports, Series GF, No. 5. Character and object are two standard governmental accounting classifications of expenditure data used by the Census Bureau as a single entity in the presentation of expenditure data. Character refers to the period of time the expenditure is presumed to benefit. The four character groupings are (1) current operating expenses, presumed to benefit the current fiscal period; (2) capital outlays, presumed to benefit the current and future periods; (3) intergovernmental, when one government transfers resources to another; and (4) debt service, presumed to benefit prior fiscal periods, as well as current and future periods. Debt service is not applicable to available justice expenditure data. Object applies to the article purchased or the service obtained, for example, personal services, contractual services, equipment, and construction. (Definitions adapted from Government Finance Officers Association, "Government Accounting, Auditing, and Financial Reporting," pages 319 and 343, Chicago: 1994, as provided by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.) Variable pass-through expenditure data were collected through the JEE Surveys. Those data were developed to comply with the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended, which required that block grants made by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), and later by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), to each state be allocated between the state and local governments on the basis of the ratio of state-to-local law enforcement expenditure from their own revenue sources. The Justice System Improvement Act of 1979 changed the distribution formula and based the new one on expenditure from general purpose revenue sources. The Justice Assistance Act of 1984 returned to the variable pass-through formula. Justice expenditure data cannot be produced on either basis from this limited JEE Extracts program. GOVERNMENTAL EMPLOYMENT Employment and employees refer to all persons gainfully employed by and performing services for a government. Employees include all persons paid for personal services performed, including persons paid from federally funded programs, paid elected officials, persons in a 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, and contractors and their employees are excluded from the count of employees. Under this definition are two classes: Full-time employees include those persons whose hours of work represent full-time employment in their employer government during the pay period including October 12 of the year specified in the table for 1980 to 1997. Generally, it includes full-time temporary or seasonal workers employed during that pay period. October is used because public employment is relatively stable in that month and free from seasonal employment fluctuations. In 1997, the reference month changed to March of each year. Part-time employees are those persons who work less than the standard number of hours for full-time work in their employer government during the pay period including October 12 of the year specified in the table and persons paid by more than one government. Full-time equivalent employment is a statistical measure that estimates the total workforce accounting for the less than full-time employment of part-time employees. Prior to 1986, the formula for computing full-time equivalent employment was payroll-based; specifically, it was calculated by dividing the total payroll amount (full-time plus part-time) by the full-time payroll amount and multiplying the resultant quotient by the number of full-time employees. Beginning in 1986, it is computed by dividing the part-time hours paid by the standard number of hours for full-time employees in the particular government and then adding the resulting quotient to the number of full-time employees. In both formulae, the calculation is performed separately at the individual function type for each respondent government. Consequently, summaries by state, type of government, and function are aggregates of individual calculations. The formula was changed because the previously used payroll-based formula necessarily assumed that there is little or no difference between average wage rates for full-time and part-time workers; however, this is seldom the case. Part-time pay scales are generally below those for full-time workers, thus resulting in an understatement of full-time equivalent employment. The understatement was estimated at between 2.8% and 3.8% at the national level. The previously used payroll-based methodology may also produce a trend bias if the rate of change in part-time employment is different from that in full-time employment (FTE). Users should keep in mind the expected understatement of FTE in years prior to 1986 when making trend comparisons. October and March payrolls represent gross payrolls for the 1-month period of October or March and comprise the gross payroll before deductions. It includes all salaries, wages, fees, or commissions paid to employees during the pay period, including October 12 or March 12 of the year cited in the table. Payroll amounts reported for a period other than 1 month were converted to represent an amount for the month of October or March. Average monthly salaries are for full-time employees only and are calculated by dividing full-time employee payrolls by the number of full-time employees for October of the year indicated in the table. GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS General government functions include all activities other than those classed as public utilities (water supply, electric power, gas supply, and transit systems), liquor stores (dispensaries operated by 17 state governments and by local governments of 5 states, as of 2008), and insurance trust systems (no employment data are associated with insurance trusts). All government functions include the latter. Justice is the combined functions of police protection, judicial and legal services, and corrections as defined in detail below. As noted below, it consistently includes civil justice functions, as well as criminal justice functions where criminal functions cannot be segregated in available source documents. Police protection is the function of enforcing the law, preserving order and traffic safety, and apprehending those who violate the law, whether these activities are performed by a police department, a sheriff's department, or a special police force maintained by an agency whose primary responsibility is outside the justice system but that has a police force to perform these activities in its specialized area (geographic or functional). However, see the "Differences in operational definitions" section of JEECOMP.TXT ("Comparability Issues Between the JEE Survey and the JEE Extracts Programs") on this zip archive for areas where this definition is difficult to apply in the JEE Extracts series. This category includes-- -- regular police services -- police patrols and communications -- crime prevention activties -- temporary lockups and holding tanks -- traffic safety and engineering (but not highway planning and engineering) -- vehicular inspection and licensing -- buildings used exclusively for police purposes -- the maintenance of buildings used for police purposes -- medical examiners and coroners -- law enforcement activities of sheriff's offices -- unsworn school crossing guards, parking meter readers, and animal wardens, if employed by a police agency. Private security police are outside the scope of the survey. The special police forces included in the data are only those that are part of a general purpose government. Those special police forces that are part of independent school districts or special districts are not included in the data, as these districts are not general purpose governments. Police protection employment data are further divided between-- -- sworn employees, which represent persons with the power of arrest -- nonsworn employees, which are all others. In most states, sheriff's departments are multifunctional agencies providing police protection, judicial, or correctional services. In order to allocate expenditure and employment data to the proper activity, the data for sheriff's departments are prorated, resulting in differences in other police reporting programs such as the BJS Law Enforcement, Management, and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) program and the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, which report the numbers of employees in law enforcement agencies regardless of functions performed. Short-term custody and detention are considered part of the police protection function. Data for lockups or tanks holding prisoners less than 48 hours are included in the police protection category. Data for institutions with authority to hold prisoners 48 hours or more are included in the corrections category. Judicial and legal services covers all civil and criminal activities associated with courts, including prosecution and public defense. However, see the "Differences in operational definitions" section of JEECOMP.TXT ("Comparability Issues Between the JEE Survey and the JEE Extracts Programs") on this zip archive for areas where this definition is difficult to apply in the JEE Extracts series. The judicial and legal services category in the JEE Extracts series includes the following court functions covered as a separate category in the periodic JEE Survey: -- civil and criminal functions of courts at all levels of legal jurisdiction: appellate (last resort and intermediate), general jurisdiction, and limited jurisdiction -- activities associated with courts, such as law libraries, grand juries, petit juries, and medical and social service activities (except probation, which is classified as corrections where separately identifiable) -- court reporters, judicial councils, bailiffs, and register of wills and similar probate functions, court (civil) activities of sheriff's offices in some jurisdictions. Also included in the judicial and legal category are all civil and criminal justice activities of prosecution and legal service agencies. It includes the following prosecution and legal service activities covered as a separate category in the periodic JEE Survey: -- attorneys general, district attorneys, state's attorneys, and their variously named equivalents -- corporation counsels, solicitors, and legal departments with various names, including those providing legal advice to the chief executives and subordinate departmental officers, representation of the government in law suits, and the prosecution of accused violators of criminal law -- various investigative agencies having full arrest powers and attached to offices of attorneys general, district attorneys, or their variously named equivalents. These activities are included whether performed by one office or several because in some jurisdictions a single office provides all legal services, whereas in others a prosecutor's office handles only criminal matters and a separate attorney's office performs all civil legal services. Also included in the judicial and legal category are the civil and criminal justice activities of public defenders, other agencies that provide legal counsel and representation in either criminal or civil proceedings, and other government programs that pay the fees of court-appointed counsel. It includes the following public defense activities covered as a separate category in the periodic JEE Survey: -- court-paid fees to individually retained counsel -- fees paid by the court to court-appointed counsel -- government contributions to private legal aid societies and bar association-sponsored programs -- activities of an established public defender office or program. This category excludes-- -- monetary judgments and claims or other payments of a government as a defendant in judicial or administrative proceedings -- legal units of noncriminal justice agencies, whose functions may be performed by a legal service department in other jurisdictions (such as a county counsel). Corrections is the function of government involving the confinement and rehabilitation of adults and juveniles convicted of offenses against the law, and the confinement of persons suspected of a crime and awaiting adjudication. However, see the "Differences in operational definitions" section of JEECOMP.TXT ("Comparability Issues Between the JEE Survey and the JEE Extracts Programs") on this zip archive for areas where this definition is difficult to apply in the JEE Extracts series. Corrections direct expenditure for state governments is further divided into two subcategories: -- correctional institutions -- other corrections. Correctional institutions are any facilities for the confinement and correction of convicted adults or juveniles adjudicated delinquent or in need of supervision, and for the detention of those adults and juveniles accused of a crime and awaiting trial or hearing. (Data for lockups or tanks holding prisoners less than 48 hours are included in the police protection category.) Correctional institutions include-- -- prisons and penitentiaries -- reformatories -- jails -- houses of correction -- other variously named correctional institutions, such as correctional farms, workhouses, industrial schools, and training schools -- institutions and facilities exclusively for the confinement of the criminally insane -- institutions and facilities for the examination, evaluation, classification, and assignment of inmates -- facilities for the confinement, treatment, and rehabilitation of drug addicts and alcoholics, if the institution is administered by a correctional agency. When an institution maintains a prison industry or agricultural program, data on the cost of production or the value of prison labor used by agencies of the same government, if identifiable, are excluded (and classed as expenditure for the function using the product or services). Expenditure for the manufacture, production, sale, and distribution of goods produced for sale or use outside the government is included under this heading. It excludes the cost of maintaining prisoners in institutions of other governments, which are classified as an intergovernmental expenditure for which the institutions vs. other corrections distinctions are not applied. Other corrections consists of all noninstitutional correctional activities, including-- -- parole boards and programs -- pardon boards -- nonresidential resettlement or halfway houses for those not in need of institutionalization -- probation activities and programs, even if administered by a court (but see the "Differences in operational definitions" section of JEECOMP.TXT ("Comparability Issues Between the JEE Survey and the JEE Extracts Programs") on this zip archive for areas where this definition is difficult to apply in the JEE Extracts series. -- correctional administration not directly connectable to institutions -- payments to another government for boarding prisoners classified as intergovernmental expenditure for which the institutions and "other corrections distinctions discussed above are not applied. In practice, intergovernmental payments of this type are difficult to detect for insignificant amounts between local governments. -- miscellaneous items that cannot be directly related to institutional care.