[ STATISTICS METHODOLOGY / REVIEWED JULY 18, 2026 ]

Every amount keeps its meaning.

RouteFrame separates geography, federal place names, demographics, mapped public records, financial responsibility, evidence tier, calculation basis, confidence, and unknown values. The national catalog covers counties, six current Census community classes, and USGS GNIS populated places. Procurement evidence remains a five-record reviewed sample, not a complete national spending ledger.

01 / SOURCE HIERARCHY

Direct payment evidence ranks above planning material.

Tier 1

Paid invoices, check registers, transaction ledgers, open-checkbook records, canceled checks, purchase-order payment histories, and audited statements.

Tier 2

Executed contracts, signed amendments, purchase orders, accepted government quotes, award notices, approvals, and grant award documents.

Tier 3

Adopted budgets, capital plans, staff memoranda, agenda packets, committee reports, grant applications, and procurement recommendations.

Tiers 4 through 6

Official statements, reputable external reporting, and unverified indicators remain progressively weaker. Tier 6 never confirms a financial or deployment claim.

02 / FINANCIAL TRUTH

No single spent bucket.

Every financial row must be classified as appropriated, budgeted, authorized, contract ceiling, obligated, purchase ordered, invoiced, paid, refunded, reimbursed, grant awarded, grant drawn, local match, estimated, or unknown. A contract ceiling is not a payment. An authorization is not an invoice. An award is not proof that the award funded cameras.

03 / NATIONAL PLACE AND COUNTY CATALOG

Towns, townships, counties, and unincorporated names are searchable.

The catalog imports January 1, 2025 TIGERweb records for counties and county equivalents, incorporated places, Census designated places, county subdivisions, consolidated cities, estates, and subbarrios. These include New England towns and territory community types that an incorporated-place-only list would miss. It also imports the current USGS GNIS national populated-place file so named unincorporated communities without Census boundaries can be found.

A Census entity is a geographic record, not proof that it is an independent government or contracting buyer. A GNIS populated place is an official federal name and representative point, not a legal boundary, population record, or government. Population and household values come from the official 2024 ACS 5-year bulk tables when a Census geography supports them. The join uses the full Census geography class and GEOID so a county cannot be confused with a ZIP code or another geography that shares the same numeric tail. Each value is a 2020 through 2024 survey estimate and retains its available 90 percent margin of error.

04 / RECONCILIATION

Alternate values do not become extra spending.

Each financial observation carries a duplicate group and publication decision. Lancaster's $61,700 council authorization and $61,200 attached quote remain separate source facts. Only the authorization ceiling enters the exposure aggregate. The quote stays visible as an excluded alternate value.

05 / COUNTY CONTEXT AND MODELS

A county count never becomes a town fact.

Each community is matched to the county containing its Census or GNIS representative point. The county card reports public-source ALPR records joined to the January 1, 2025 county boundary. It does not report a town camera count, official inventory, ownership, or current operation.

The illustrative multiplication applies the low and high annual figures in five reviewed bundled municipal contracts to the county mapped-record count. RouteFrame has no evidence that every mapped record was purchased at those rates. The output estimates no actual town or county spending. It is not an invoice, payment total, nationwide total, or vendor revenue estimate.

06 / VERSIONED METHODS

Current public calculation contracts

STATISTICS: RF-STATISTICS-v1.0
RECONCILIATION: RF-RECONCILIATION-v1.0
GEOGRAPHY: RF-GEOGRAPHY-2025.1
BOUNDARY VINTAGE: 2025-01-01
DEMOGRAPHIC VINTAGE: 2020-2024 ACS 5-YEAR

07 / WHAT IS NOT CALCULATED

Safety and evidence limits

No surveillance blind spots or camera-avoidance routes.
No exact operational viewing cones or capture distances without authoritative evidence.
No national spending or camera totals from the five-record sample.
No paid total when Tier 1 payment evidence is absent.
No conversion of a missing mapped record into zero cameras or zero spending.
No bundled contract presented as a fixed-camera price benchmark.