Methodology | State Intelligence Platform

1. Public Land

Data Sources: State ArcGIS Feature Service REST APIs and state open data portals. Each state has a dedicated scraper targeting its specific GIS endpoints.
Methodology: Automated scrapers paginate through public GIS endpoints, normalize records to a common schema (parcel ID, agency, county, acres, coordinates), and reverse-geocode counties via US Census Bureau GeoJSON shapefiles. Interactive maps render parcels with acreage, managing agency, and property details.
Update Frequency: Refreshed on each deploy. Underlying state data typically updates quarterly to annually depending on the state portal.
Coverage & Known Gaps: 25 of 51 jurisdictions currently covered. Acreage and valuation completeness varies by state. Some states do not publish coordinates or market values. Coverage depends on availability of public ArcGIS endpoints.

2. Medicaid

Data Sources: CMS NPPES Provider Registry (download.cms.gov) and CMS Medicaid Provider Utilization & Payment Data.
Methodology: ETL pipeline extracts provider NPIs from the NPPES bulk file, joins with Medicaid claims data, and computes per-state provider summaries, monthly spending trends, and statistical anomaly detection (z-score based) for billing outliers.
Update Frequency: NPPES registry: monthly updates from CMS. Claims data: annual release cycle (most recent: CY2023).
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions. Claims data is CY2023 (most recent available from CMS). Provider-to-specialty mapping relies on NPPES taxonomy codes which can be outdated. Anomaly detection uses statistical thresholds, not clinical review.

3. State of the State

Data Sources: Official governor State of the State address transcripts (2025 and 2026), sourced from governor offices and state legislature archives.
Methodology: AI-powered analysis comparing 2025 vs. 2026 addresses. Extracts policy priorities, identifies new/dropped/shifted topics, and generates topic-level analysis across 12+ policy categories with year-over-year comparison for same-governor states.
Update Frequency: Annual, following the governor address season (typically January–March).
Coverage & Known Gaps: 37 of 51 jurisdictions. 14 states missing because governors have not yet delivered 2026 addresses or transcripts are not publicly available. Analysis is AI-generated and may miss nuance or local political context. Topic categorization is standardized, so state-specific issues may be grouped broadly.

4. Regulatory Reform

Data Sources: State administrative codes, Mercatus Center RegData restriction counts, state agency websites, legislative databases, and existing reform initiative documentation.
Methodology: 15-strategy research pipeline per state covering occupational licensing, permitting, healthcare, energy, housing, and more. 100 reform candidates generated per state, scored on impact and feasibility, then re-ranked by political ease on a 5-point scale (admin-only to heavy-lift) using keyword-based classification.
Update Frequency: Periodically re-researched. Reform candidates are regenerated when new state data becomes available.
Coverage & Known Gaps: 41 of 51 jurisdictions. Political ease scoring is keyword-based (deterministic but approximate — no human validation). Reform candidates are AI-research-generated, not vetted by state officials or subject matter experts. Some candidates may be outdated if legislation has passed since research was conducted.

5. Federal Grants

Last fetched: March 30, 2026 at 06:47 AM UTC

Data Sources: USAspending.gov API (api.usaspending.gov) — the official source for federal spending data, maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Methodology: Per-state aggregation of grant awards (CFDA types 02–05) for the current fiscal year. Agency-level breakdown with DOGE risk flagging based on publicly reported agency restructuring targets. Quarterly spending trends over 5 fiscal years. Per-capita figures calculated using Census population estimates.
Update Frequency: Refreshed on each deploy. USAspending data has a 2–3 month agency reporting lag.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions. DOGE risk classification is based on public reporting and may not reflect all planned changes. Per-capita figures use Census population estimates which may be slightly outdated.

6. Workforce

Last fetched: March 30, 2026 at 06:47 AM UTC

Data Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics LAUS (Local Area Unemployment Statistics) program, seasonally adjusted. QCEW (Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages) for sector-level data.
Methodology: Monthly time series via BLS API v2. 24-month trend for unemployment rate, labor force participation, and employment figures. Sector growth derived from QCEW quarterly establishment change percentages. National averages provided as comparison benchmarks.
Update Frequency: Refreshed on each deploy. LAUS data is monthly (preliminary, subject to revision). QCEW data lags approximately 6 months.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions. QCEW sector data may be unavailable for smaller states. LAUS preliminary estimates are subject to monthly revision.

7. FEMA Disasters

Last fetched: March 30, 2026 at 06:47 AM UTC

Data Sources: OpenFEMA API — DisasterDeclarationsSummaries and FemaWebDisasterSummaries endpoints.
Methodology: Disaster declarations from 2016 onward, deduplicated by disaster number. Financial data from Public Assistance (PA) and Individual Assistance (IA) summaries joined by disaster number. Active disasters identified by open incident period.
Update Frequency: Refreshed on each deploy. OpenFEMA data updates within days of new declarations.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions. Financial summaries may not exist for recently declared disasters. Fire Management Assistance (FM) declarations are frequent but typically small in scope.

8. Fiscal Health

Last fetched: March 30, 2026 at 06:47 AM UTC

Data Sources: U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State Government Finances (ASFIN) FY2022. Credit ratings from S&P, Moody's, and Fitch via Wikipedia aggregation of state general obligation bond ratings.
Methodology: Finance data via Census API (SVY_COMP=04) covering total revenue, total expenditure, and outstanding debt. Credit ratings scraped from Wikipedia's curated table of state GO bond ratings. Per-capita calculations use Census population estimates.
Update Frequency: Census ASFIN data is released annually with a ~2-year lag (FY2022 is the latest available). Credit ratings are point-in-time snapshots.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions with Census data; credit ratings available for most states. Census data lags ~2 years. Credit ratings may be stale for recently downgraded or upgraded states.

9. Education

Last fetched: March 30, 2026 at 06:46 AM UTC

Data Sources: NAEP Nation's Report Card (nationsreportcard.gov) 2024 assessment results. U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard API for higher education metrics.
Methodology: K-12 scores from NAEP Data Explorer for 4th and 8th grade math and reading across all jurisdictions. Higher education metrics aggregated across 4-year Title IV institutions per state, including median earnings, graduation rates, and net price.
Update Frequency: NAEP is assessed biennially (latest: 2024). College Scorecard data lags approximately 1 year.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions for NAEP. College Scorecard covers 4-year Title IV institutions; community colleges are excluded from higher education aggregation.

10. Infrastructure

Last fetched: March 30, 2026 at 06:47 AM UTC

Data Sources: FHWA National Bridge Inventory (NBI) 2025 data. EPA ECHO Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) for water system violations.
Methodology: Bridge good/fair/poor condition percentages from FHWA state summary tables. Water violations from EPA ECHO API for community water systems. Composite infrastructure grade (A–F) is a simplified metric based on bridge condition and water violation rates.
Update Frequency: NBI data is annual (2025 edition). EPA ECHO data refreshed on each deploy.
Coverage & Known Gaps: Bridge data: all 51 jurisdictions. Water data: 30 of 51 states currently covered. Roads (HPMS) and broadband (FCC) data not yet integrated. Composite grade is a simplified approximation, not a comprehensive engineering assessment.

11. Federal Legislation

Last fetched: March 30, 2026 at 06:46 AM UTC

Data Sources: Congress.gov API (api.congress.gov) — the official source for legislative data from the Library of Congress.
Methodology: Congressional delegation roster from Congress.gov member endpoint. Sponsored bills fetched for top 4 members (2 senators + 2 representatives) per state. Policy areas categorized by Congress.gov taxonomy. Covers the 119th Congress.
Update Frequency: Refreshed on each deploy. Congress.gov data updates as bills are introduced and amended.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions except DC (non-voting delegate not listed in standard member endpoint). Bill count limited to top 4 members per state. Cosponsored legislation is not included in current counts.

12. SNAP/HR1

Data Sources: CMS payment error rate data (Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission) and USDA SNAP Quality Control (QC) data for state-level benefit accuracy and error rates.
Methodology: Annual payment error rate (PER) by state from CMS improper payment reports. SNAP benefit calculations derived from USDA QC active case reviews, including overpayment and underpayment rates. HR1 cost exposure estimates computed from state-level error rates applied to total program expenditure, projecting fiscal impact of proposed compliance requirements.
Update Frequency: Annual, following the CMS publication schedule (typically November). USDA SNAP QC data released annually with a ~1 year lag.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions for SNAP error rates. CMS payment error data covers Medicaid and CHIP. HR1 exposure estimates are projections based on current error rates and proposed legislation — actual impact will depend on final bill language and implementation rules.

13. Campaign Finance

Separate explorer: state-campaign-finance.onconcourse.com

Data Sources: Accountability Project public S3 bucket (publicaccountability.s3.amazonaws.com) — pre-cleaned state campaign finance CSVs covering 33 states with ~200M+ records. Follow The Money (FollowTheMoney.org) API for 2023-2024 candidate-level contribution and expenditure data.
Methodology: Streaming CSV normalization with state-specific column alias mapping (handles different column names per state). Name deduplication reverses “LAST, FIRST” formats and strips suffixes. Contributions categorized by type (individual, PAC, party, corporate, self-funded) and party affiliation (Democrat, Republican, Other). Top donors and recipients ranked by total dollar amount with aggregate placeholder donors filtered out.
Update Frequency: Summary data is pre-computed and committed. Accountability Project data updates vary by state disclosure agency filing schedules. FTM overlay adds the latest 2023-2024 cycle data.
Coverage & Known Gaps: 33 states with real data from public records. 18 states (CA, DC, IL, KS, LA, MS, MT, ND, NE, NJ, NM, NY, OK, OR, RI, SD, TN, WI) show seed (estimated) data pending state-direct scraper implementation. 10 real-data states missing expenditure records. States clearly labeled with Real Data or Seed Data badges.

14. Housing Affordability

Last updated: March 30, 2026 at 06:46 AM UTC

Data Sources: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 1-Year Estimates (2023) — Tables B25058 (median contract rent), B25064 (median gross rent), B25003 (tenure/homeownership), B25077 (median home value), B25071 (rent burden), B25001 (housing units), B01003 (population).
Methodology: Prebuild script queries the Census ACS API for 7 housing variables across all 51 jurisdictions. Homeownership rate computed as owner-occupied units / total tenure units. Rent burden percentage taken directly from ACS table B25071 (median gross rent as % of household income). National medians computed from state-level data for comparison.
Update Frequency: ACS 1-Year Estimates release annually (September). Data reflects the prior calendar year (currently CY2023).
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions covered. ACS 1-Year estimates may have higher margins of error for smaller states. Building permit data not yet integrated (Census BPS endpoint format differs).

15. Public Health

Last updated: March 30, 2026 at 06:46 AM UTC

Data Sources: County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR) 2025 Analytic Dataset — produced by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Methodology: Prebuild script downloads the full CHR national CSV (~13MB, 3,207 rows) and extracts state-level rows (county FIPS = 000). Maps 11 health variables: life expectancy, drug overdose death rate, uninsured rate, obesity rate, poor mental health days, infant mortality, premature death rate (YPLL), poor physical health days, smoking rate, diabetes prevalence, and suicide rate. Proportions converted to percentages. Ranks computed per metric (1=best for all metrics except life expectancy where 1=highest).
Update Frequency: CHR releases annually (March). Underlying data sources vary: mortality data is ~2 years lagged, behavioral data ~1 year lagged.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions covered with 11 metrics each. Some metrics may show null for states with suppressed data (small populations). Ranks are out of available states per metric (typically 50-51).

16. Energy Affordability

Last updated: March 30, 2026 at 06:46 AM UTC

Data Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) API v2 — Retail Sales endpoint (residential sector prices, revenue, sales, customers) and Electric Power Operational Data endpoint (generation by fuel type: coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, petroleum, geothermal).
Methodology: Prebuild script queries EIA for residential retail electricity prices (cents/kWh) and generation by fuel type for all sectors combined. Monthly bill estimated as (annual sales / customers / 12) × price. Fuel types classified into renewable (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, wood), fossil (coal, natural gas, petroleum), and nuclear. Percentages computed from latest available annual data per state.
Update Frequency: EIA retail sales data updates monthly with ~2 month lag. Generation data updates annually. Most recent data period: 2023-2024.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions covered for prices and generation mix. Monthly bill is an estimate (actual bills vary by usage). Generation mix percentages may not sum to exactly 100% due to “Other” category exclusion and rounding.

17. Broadband Access

Last updated: March 30, 2026 at 06:46 AM UTC

Data Sources: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 1-Year Estimates (2023) — Tables B28002 (Internet Subscriptions), B28003 (Computer Presence), B28011 (Internet Subscription Type Detail).
Methodology: Prebuild script queries three ACS tables for all 51 jurisdictions. Computes broadband adoption rate (% of households with any broadband), no-internet rate, computer ownership rate, and subscription type breakdown (cable/fiber/DSL, cellular, satellite, other). National medians computed for comparison.
Update Frequency: ACS 1-Year Estimates release annually (September). Data reflects CY2023.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions. FCC BDC map API was evaluated but found to be access-restricted (403/405 on summary endpoints). Census ACS provides adoption-side metrics rather than supply-side availability.

18. State Legislation

Last updated: March 30, 2026 at 06:46 AM UTC

Data Sources: LegiScan API (free tier) — provides session lists, master bill lists, and bill status data for all 50 states and DC.
Methodology: Prebuild script queries LegiScan for each state's current legislative session (most recent non-special session preferred). Retrieves the master bill list and computes: total bills, status breakdown (introduced/engrossed/enrolled/passed/vetoed/failed), and 5 most recently active bills with title and status. Rate-limited to ~102 API calls total (2 per state).
Update Frequency: LegiScan data updates within hours of legislative activity. Prebuild runs at deploy time.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions. Free tier limits bill detail queries (full text, vote records). Bill titles may be truncated. Status mapping uses 6 categories; some states have unique status codes that map to “introduced” by default.

19. Grants Deep Dive

Data Sources: USAspending.gov API v2 (no key required) — spending by category (agency, CFDA program, recipient) and individual award search endpoints.
Methodology: Prebuild script queries USAspending for each state with grant award type codes (02-05) for FY2024-2025. Fetches top 10 awarding agencies, top 10 CFDA programs, top 10 recipients, and top 50 individual awards sorted by amount. Data written to per-state JSON files. Full analytical pages at /grants/{slug} show agency bars, program breakdown, recipient table, and sortable awards table.
Update Frequency: USAspending data updates monthly. Prebuild runs at deploy time.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions with per-state detail pages. Shows top 50 awards only (not exhaustive). Sub-award and transaction-level data not included. Future phases will add chart builder, draggable grid, and comparison mode.

20. Water Quality

Last updated: March 30, 2026 at 06:47 AM UTC

Data Sources: EPA Envirofacts SDWIS (Safe Drinking Water Information System) API — WATER_SYSTEM table for system counts by state and type. Infrastructure data for violation rates.
Methodology: Prebuild script queries EPA Envirofacts for active community water systems (CWS) and total water systems per state. Violation rates merged from the infrastructure data source (EPA ECHO). National average violation rate computed across all states. Batched queries (5 states in parallel) with rate limiting.
Update Frequency: EPA SDWIS data updates quarterly. Infrastructure violation data updates at deploy time.
Coverage & Known Gaps: All 51 jurisdictions for system counts. Violation detail (contaminant-specific) requires slow row-level queries and is deferred to a future release. Lead & Copper Rule (LCR) data available but not yet integrated.

Architecture & Pipeline

The platform uses a prebuild pipeline architecture to ensure data freshness without client-side API dependencies. This approach guarantees fast page loads, offline-capable rendering, and zero runtime API rate limits.

Prebuild Pipeline

16 parallel scripts run before the Next.js build. Each script fetches data from its respective API, transforms it into per-state JSON summaries, and writes to the data/ directory.

Static Site Generation

Next.js App Router with SSG. All pages are pre-rendered at build time from the JSON data. No use client data fetching — every metric is baked into the HTML.

No Client-Side API Calls

The site makes zero API requests from the browser. All data processing happens server-side during the build, keeping the client bundle lean and the user experience fast.

Data Freshness

All API-sourced data is refreshed on every Vercel deploy. Deploys can be triggered manually or on a schedule. Timestamps on each data source above indicate when data was last fetched.