Editorial Standards

Our Editorial Mission

SpendByCounty is a data-journalism site. Our job is to take the federal spending statistics that the government already publishes through USASpending.gov — contracts, grants, per-capita obligations, top agencies — and present them in a form that someone researching government investment, comparing county-level funding, or exploring procurement opportunities can actually use. We are not a financial advisory service. We do not provide investment advice, tax advice, or procurement recommendations.

Every page on this site is grounded in a primary-source dataset from a U.S. government agency. Where we compute composite scores or rank counties, we publish the underlying formula on our methodology page. Where we draw on AI assistance for prose, we say so on this page and on the page itself.

Who Writes and Edits This Site

SpendByCounty is published and edited by Evan Brooks, Data Editor. Evan designs the data pipeline, sets the methodology, reviews published prose for accuracy against the underlying data, and signs off on every methodology change. Evan is not a financial advisor, government auditor, or licensed accountant, and SpendByCounty does not present itself as a financial advisory service. Evan's role is the data-editor role: ensure statistics on this site match the source datasets, ensure prose stays inside what the data supports, and decline to publish anything that strays into financial advice territory.

Long-form features and reported pieces carry an explicit byline at the top of the article. Evan reviews and signs off on every long-form piece. When a feature genuinely benefits from a domain co-reviewer, we name that contributor only when they are actually involved — we do not list speculative reviewer credentials.

Where Our Data Comes From

All county-level statistics on this site come from primary government sources. We do not republish data from third-party aggregators. Our active sources are:

• USASpending.gov — the official open data source for federal spending, mandated by the DATA Act to provide transparent, searchable information on how federal dollars are spent. We use FY2024 obligations data (October 2023 – September 2024).
• U.S. Census Bureau ACS — population denominators for per-capita calculations. We use the most recent 5-year American Community Survey estimates.

Each source's URL, release date, and pull date are documented on the methodology page. Source datasets are in the public domain (federal works) and published under licenses permitting commercial redistribution with attribution.

How We Use AI

Per-county pages on this site include a short, AI-generated narrative summary that contextualizes the statistics for that county. The narrative is produced by Claude (Anthropic) from the same source data shown in the statistics tables on the page. The data editor reviews the underlying prompt and spot-checks output before publication; the prompt is constrained to forbid financial advice, investment recommendations, and any prose that goes beyond what the source statistics support.

We do not use AI to:

• Generate financial advice, investment recommendations, or procurement guidance.
• Invent statistics, sources, or quotes.
• Write methodology, editorial standards, or correction notices.
• Generate cause-and-effect claims about economic outcomes that aren't grounded in the source data.

When the underlying data is updated, narratives are regenerated to stay consistent. AI-generated prose is always paired with the source statistics so readers can verify the numbers themselves.

Corrections Policy

If you spot a factual error — a wrong statistic, a misattributed source, a broken citation — email editorial@spendbycounty.com with the page URL and the specific issue. We aim to acknowledge every report within five business days and to publish a correction or update the page within ten business days for substantive issues.

Substantive corrections (changes to a statistic, methodology, or claim) are noted in a "Corrections" entry on the page itself with the date of the correction and a short description of what changed. Typographical and formatting fixes are made silently.

How SpendByCounty Is Funded

SpendByCounty is independently owned and operated. It is part of the ByCounty Network of data sites. Funding comes from two transparent sources:

• Display advertising served by Google AdSense and similar networks. Ad placements are clearly labeled and do not influence editorial decisions or which counties we rank where.
• Affiliate links, currently limited to small business lending and government contracting resources. Affiliate links are labeled "Sponsored" and never determine which counties or agencies we feature on data pages.

We do not accept paid content, sponsored statistics, or advertorials. No data source, advertiser, or affiliate has any influence over the methodology, rankings, or editorial choices on this site.

Update Cadence

Underlying data is refreshed annually, on the release schedule of each source (USASpending.gov releases annually; Census ACS updates on a 5-year rolling cycle). Narratives are regenerated when the underlying data for a county changes. The methodology page displays its own "Last reviewed" date and changelog. This editorial-standards page was last reviewed on May 17, 2026.