Fiscal Benchmarking for Indiana's Local Governments Comprehensive Report for 2011-2012: Counties, Townships, and Cities and Towns

Abstract

The Fiscal Benchmarking for Indiana’s Local Governments project, sponsored by the Indiana University Public Policy Institute and the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs, aims to provide formal analysis of the fiscal health of Indiana local governments in a comparative context. This document is the first comprehensive report of the project. It covers data for 2011 and 2012 for Indiana’s 92 counties, 1,006 townships, and 568 cities and towns. For ease of use, we provide the document in one full PDF that includes the entire report, and then four volumes containing parts of the report (volume I -- intro and technical appendices, volume II -- County data, volume III -- Township data, and volume IV -- City and Town data. The full document contains: • a brief description of the project and the selected fiscal indicators; • a data summary and analysis highlighting important changes between 2011 and 2012 for the median county, township, and city or town government; • a series of data tables documenting 36 indicators of fiscal health organized by type of unit; • technical documentation with additional detail on the sources of data and indicator calculations; • a glossary of terms; • enterprises by local government (Appendix A); and • proceeds from borrowing other than tax anticipation warrants (Appendix B).