SOURCES AND METHODS 357 
present as complete a picture of state expenditures as the data 
permit. Because of the greater relative importance of the public 
utility expenditures of city governments, the city expenditures for 
this function are excluded from the net total in Tables 10, 12, 13, 
14, and 15. 
Expenditures of Iowa and Oklahoma for capital purposes for the 
period 1923-1928, as shown in Table 6, are slightly larger than the 
comparable totals in Table 3. The differences are attributable to 
certain payments for capital purposes included in table 6 which 
were offset by receipts from the public but which could not be de- 
ducted from the expenditures for the individual department with 
which they are identified because the actual outlays were smaller 
than the offsets. 
The estimate of total local governmental expenditures included 
in Chapter I was obtained as follows: To the expenditures of the 
four cities over 30,000 for purposes other than debt redemption 
there was added an estimated amount for other local governments 
for purposes other than debt redemption. This figure was ob- 
tained by adding the tax receipts of these governments, bonds 
issued, estimated receipts from miscellaneous sources, and state 
aid payments received. In order to obtain the gross total, to the 
total thus obtained there were added the payments for debt re- 
demption by all local governments, as reported by the Commercial 
and Financial Chronicle. In making an estimate of this kind, it 
is assumed that the cash balances of local governments other than 
those of the cities over 30,000 aggregated the same amount at the 
end of the year as at the beginning. It should be noted that of the 
total estimate of $163.6 million a great deal more than one half is 
accounted for by expenditures of cities over 30,000 for purposes 
other than debt redemption. Since the total estimate includes a 
known quantity of considerable size, it follows that the margin of 
error is not so large as it might first appear. 
The estimate of local interest payments was obtained as follows. 
The local net bonded debt, other than that attributable to the four 
large cities, was multiplied by a rate of 4.35%, and to the amount 
thus obtained there was added a small estimated amount on ac- 
count of interest on short term indebtedness other than that of 
the four cities and the total interest payments of the four cities, as 
shown in Table 10. 
In the analysis of local expenditures the amount of $2 million 
was deducted on account of duplication in school expenditures 
occasioned by the fact that interest payments are included under 
incidental expenditures in compiling the school data presented