Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Traditionally, in the social program domain, state and local agencies have provided data for compliance and other reporting purposes to federal agencies.  Also, they have received little benefit from sending data to Washington as federal agencies often simply compile the data and provide aggregate reports—often with a significant delay of multiple years.  However, increasingly, the data that the federal government collects both internally and from states is becoming available to academic researchers to conduct either social or economic research or program evaluation.  The Commission of Evidence-Based Policy-Making (created as a result of Public Law No: 114-140) will further promote the use of data from federal and federally-supported programs to build evidence through the better use of data.  The Commission shall consider whether a clearinghouse for program and survey data should be established and how to create such clearinghouse.

 

An open question is how state and local government may benefit from both federal data and the data that they collect themselves.  As more integrated data systems are being developed from research and evaluation purposes and the municipal and state level, the additional of federal data would fill in major gaps and allow more rigorous analysis to be completed by non-federal governments.  However, there are a number of barriers that need to be addressed to make the connection between federal and local data for the benefit of local government.  Among them is the variation in the capacity of local governments to use administrative data.  The capacity to extract data from information system, clean the data, merge or link the data with other datasets, and conduct statistical analyses is not one that many local governments now have in across health, human service, law enforcement, employment, and education agencies.  It is difficult for government to hire social and data scientists when the private sector can offer more attractive salaries and benefit packages.

This paper will address not only the barriers, but the benefits.  The benefits lie in state and local governments having data not previously available to them that goes beyond their borders so that better long-term follow-up of their residents is possible.  The use of Census Bureau survey microdata linked to other federal datasets, much as the LEHD project has done, to enhance the information that they have about residents would also take most local governments beyond where they are today.

This paper will provide concrete examples of how state and local governments use of data can enhance the information that they have available to them to conduct analysis and evaluation of their programs and policies.