“Remember that your financial mapping is guided by your populations of focus. Decide first whether your financial mapping is examining state-level expenditures only, or both state and local. Financial mapping across public agencies can be challenging, because each agency has its own data system and captures expenditures and service utilization in different ways. Tackling both state and local level expenditures at once adds to the challenge. Make a decision also as to what fiscal year or years to include for the analysis. Different systems may have data from different fiscal years available; usually, there is a trade-off to be made between taking the most recent data each system has available, recognizing that may include different fiscal years across the agencies, or deciding on a single fiscal year across agencies, recognizing that may not be the most recent data.”
