Government Employment & Payroll

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Data Collection: 2011

Confidentiality: Data collected for the Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll are public record and are not confidential, as authorized by Title 13, U.S. Code, Section 9.

Dates of Collection: The following are important dates in the data collection process.

2011 Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll
03/2011	Initial mailout
04/2011	Reminder letter mailout
06/2011	Follow-up mailout
08/2012	Preliminary Release to the Internet

Methods: Data in these files are based on information obtained in the Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll. Census Bureau staff compiled Federal Government data from records of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Forty-five of the state governments provided data from central payroll records for all or most of their agencies/institutions. Data for agencies and institutions for the remaining state governments were obtained by mail canvass questionnaires. Local governments were also canvassed using a mail questionnaire. However, elementary and secondary school system data in Florida, North Dakota, and Washington were supplied through special collections with the state education agency in each of these states. Additionally, in Delaware, a state government respondent supplied data for school districts. Ten counties, twelve cities, two townships and three other local school districts provided data in an electronic format. All respondents receiving the mail questionnaire had the option of completing the survey using a web-based survey instrument developed for reporting the data. The online survey instrument was completed by 21.0% of the state-level responding units and 54.6% of the local government respondents.

Sample Design: The 2009 sample for the Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll was selected from the 2007 Census of Governments: Employment Component (CoG-E) and updated with births to the universe since 2007. A two-stage sample was designed to produce state-by-type of government estimates with a relative standard error of three percent or less on full-time equivalent employees and total payroll. In the first stage, the sample design is a stratified probability proportional to size (PPS) design. In the second stage, a modified cut-off sample method was developed to reduce the number of small townships and special districts. There are a total of 90,690 units on the frame.

Units satisfying the following criteria were automatically included in the sample with a probability of 1.0000. These certainty units represent themselves only.

• All county governments with a 2007 population of 100,000 or more.
• All municipalities with a 2007 population of 75,000 or more.
• All townships with a 2007 population of 50,000 or more.
• All independent school districts with an enrollment of 10,000 or more.
• All school districts providing college level (postsecondary) education.
• All special districts that meet at least one of the following criteria:

• FTE of 1,000 or more,
• All water utilities (function code 91) in the state of Connecticut,
• All electric utilities (function code 92) in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Utah, and Wisconsin,
• All gas utilities (function code 93).

All other units were given a chance of selection based on the total payroll of the unit. Prior to selecting the sample, the sampling frame was sorted by state and type of government (city, county, township, special district, school district). For special districts, the sampling frame was sorted by probability of selection within function code. (Note: See Chapter 12 of the 2006 Classification Manual for the categories for classifying Employment data.)

Prior to the 2011 mail-out, the sample universe file was updated with births (units that did not exist previously) since 2010. All city, county, township, and school district births were added to the sample with a probability of selection of 1.0000. Special districts were included with certainty if they met the certainty criteria as mentioned above. The remaining special districts were sorted by function code and state, and then sampled systematically at a rate of 1 in 25.