This book guides readers to mastery of a wide array of practical analytic techniques useful to local governments. This updated third edition features analytic methods selected for their relevance to everyday problems encountered in city and county governments.

Preface Part I - Introduction Chapter 1. The Role of Analysis in Local Government Part II - The Basics Chapter 2. Central Tendency and Dispersion Chapter 3. Performance Measurement and Monitoring Chapter 4. Smoothing Data Trends by Using Moving Averages Chapter 5. Sampling for Analysis Chapter 6. Basic Statistical Testing: Correlation and Chi-Square Chapter 7. Sensitivity Analysis Chapter 8. Break-Even Analysis Chapter 9. Detecting Meaningful Differences in Average Performance Part III - Analyzing a Unit's Capacity to Meet the Demand for Service Chapter 10. Demand Analysis Chapter 11. Work Distribution Analysis Chapter 12. Using Performance Standards Chapter 13. Staffing Analysis Chapter 14. Staffing Factor Calculation: Projections for Uninterruptable Services Part IV - What Does It Cost? Chapter 15. Adjusting for Inflation When Comparing Revenues or Expenditures Chapter 16. Basic Investment Calculations: Figuring Interest Rates and Yields Chapter 17. The Time Value of Money: Opportunity Costs, Discounting, Compounding, Future Value, and Present Value Chapter 18. Simple Options for Annualizing Costs of Capital Items: Usage-Rate and Straight-Line Depreciation Chapter 19. Identifying the Full Costs of a Program Chapter 20. Calculating Go-Away Costs for Privatization Decisions Chapter 21. Life-Cycle Costing Chapter 22. Lease or Buy? Chapter 23. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: A Truncated Version of Cost-Benefit Analysis Part V - Process Improvement Chapter 24. Pareto Charts Chapter 25. Cause-and-Effect Diagrams Chapter 26. Process Flow Charts Chapter 27. Control Charts Part VI - Other Analytic Opportunities and Techniques Chapter 28. Citizen Surveys and Customer Surveys Chapter 29. Analyzing Survey Data: Revealing Graphics and Simple Statistics Chapter 30. Financial Condition Analysis Chapter 31. Random Chance or Bias? A Practical Use of Binomial Probability Distribution Chapter 32. Forecasting Chapter 33. Analysis of Operations via Benchmarking Part VII - Presenting Analytic Evidence Chapter 34. Presenting Analytic Evidence: Tables or Graphs? Part VIII - Wrap Up Chapter 35. The Place of Analysis in a Political Environment Appendix A. Distribution of Chi-Square Appendix B. Distribution of t Appendix C. Future Value Interest Factors Appendix D. Sum of Annuity Factor (SAF) Appendix E. The Normal Distribution and Table of z-Score Probabilities Appendix F. Excel's Data Analysis ToolPak-Installation, Use, and Example