10 State and Local Fast Facts

We know you’re busy and may not have as much time to read all the cool articles and reports on state and local government as you may want to. You might not even have time to read a full length blog post. Fortunately, we understand that there are just not enough hours in the day to do all the reading you want, so we put together ten state and local fast facts for you to quickly check out:

1. Every state has a bicameral legislature except for Nebraska, who has a unicameral one.
2. There are four main types of local governments: counties, townships, special districts and municipalities.
3. At least thirty percent of any given state’s budget is appropriated from federal funds.
4. Nearly half of the public state and local workforce is reaching retirement age in the next few years.
5. Some of the most difficult state and local positions to fill in the current economic climate are accountants, project managers, and corrections officers.
6. The top five states for gender equality in the workforce are the District of Columbia, Arizona, California, Maryland, and Florida.
7. Most state and local organizations recruit through online job advertisements.
8. States use sales tax to help local governments pay for services and property tax to support more general infrastructure like school systems, roads, and police and fire departments.
9. While not in the U.S., the first city to be considered truly IoT enabled is Dublin, Ireland.
10. The state of Delaware takes their cybersecurity efforts so seriously that their information security office is formally known as the Cyber Squad.

Got some downtime this weekend and want to dive a little deeper into state and local issues? Check out GovLoop’s Understanding State and Local Government and State and Local Government Workforce guides.