Executive and Legislative Offices, Combined (U.S.) — NAICS 921140

A Histometrics industry primer for public-market and private investors.

1. Overview

NAICS 921140 ("NAICS" = North American Industry Classification System, the standard the U.S. government uses to sort the economy) covers a narrow slice of American government: the offices where a jurisdiction's executive and legislative functions sit in the same body. In practice that means county boards of commissioners or supervisors, and the many smaller towns and townships where the mayor or executive is also a voting member of the council.[1] These are overwhelmingly local governments, not federal agencies — and they are institutions, not companies. They have no shareholders, market revenue, dividends, or acquisition value; they answer to voters.

So why would an investor read a primer on it? Because the investable exposure is entirely indirect, through two things these offices produce:

• They are the borrowers behind a ~$4.2 trillion asset class. County and municipal governing bodies authorize and issue municipal bonds — tax-exempt debt that funds roads, schools, and water systems.[7] If you own a muni-bond fund, you effectively lend to these offices.
• They are the customers for a large vendor market. State-and-local-government software alone was roughly $9.7 billion in 2024, the revenue base for public-sector software firms such as Tyler Technologies, plus a wider set of government-services contractors and advisers.[11]

There is no way to "buy" a county board. The thesis is therefore policy- and budget-driven rather than product-driven: the offices are durable, but the debt they issue re-prices with credit and rates, and the vendors that serve them earn uneven results tied to budgets, elections, and procurement timing. This primer treats both routes.

2. What it is, and how it's structured

In scope (921140): government establishments that serve as a combined executive-and-legislative body — a council or board of commissioners/supervisors in which the chief executive (county executive, mayor) is a member of the legislature itself.[1] It sits inside industry group 9211, "Executive, Legislative, and Other General Government Support," within Sector 92, Public Administration.[1]

What it explicitly excludes (each has its own code):[1]

• 921110 Executive Offices — a standalone chief executive (a governor's office; a strong-mayor's office separate from council).
• 921120 Legislative Bodies — a standalone legislature (Congress, a state legislature, a city council separate from the mayor).
• 921130 Public Finance Activities — treasury, budget, debt, and taxation administration.
• 921190 Other General Government Support — personnel offices, election boards, civil-service commissions, and general administrative support not elsewhere classified.
• 921150 American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Governments.
• Program operations are usually classified by the activity performed, not here: running a government airport, school, hospital, utility, or court falls under the relevant activity code (e.g., subsector 922, Justice, Public Order, and Safety, for courts).

Ownership mix: public by definition — effectively 100% government, with no private ownership inside the code. The meaningful "structural" facts are about forms of local government (commission, council-manager, mayor-council) and whether a state grants localities home rule (broad self-governing power) or follows Dillon's Rule (localities may do only what the state expressly permits). Those legal frameworks — not any corporate structure — determine what these offices can tax, spend, and borrow. Private ownership appears only in the supplier layer.

3. How big it is (and why the usual business statistics miss it)

Caveat up front: our ingested federal stat set contains no metrics for NAICS 921140, so this primer reports no NAICS-specific figure for establishments, employment, payroll, or revenue, and infers no suppressed value. The gap is structural: the Census Bureau's flagship business dataset, County Business Patterns (CBP), excludes Public Administration (Sector 92) and most government employees by design, so ordinary "number of firms / receipts" statistics undercount this industry to essentially zero.[2] The right yardsticks come instead from the Census of Governments and the Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll (ASPEP).

By those measures the universe of governing bodies is large. As of the 2022 Census of Governments:[3]

• 3,031 county governments, 19,491 municipal governments, and 16,214 town or township governments — the jurisdictions where the combined executive-and-legislative form (921140) is concentrated.
• (There are also 39,555 special-district governments and 12,546 school districts, but those have separate codes and separate boards.)

On employment, national statistics are reported for local government as a whole, not cleanly for the 921140 slice:

• Local governments employed roughly 14 million people in 2022 (about 73% of the entire state-and-local workforce), equal to about 11.1 million full-time-equivalent (FTE) positions, with monthly local-government payroll near $67.6 billion (March 2022).[4] For broader context, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) 2024 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) counted about 14.6 million local, 4.8 million state, and 3.0 million federal civilian employees across all government industries.[5]
• The narrower industry group "Executive offices & legislative bodies" (which bundles standalone executive, standalone legislative, and combined offices) counted roughly 1.3 million workers in 2024 at an average salary near $72,000; the 921140-only figure is a subset of that and is not separately published in a clean series — we flag it rather than guess.[6]

The honest read: this is a headcount-and-payroll story, not a revenue story, and the federal business statistics carve government out. For investors, the metrics that matter are not same-store sales or capacity utilization but the ones below.

4. The investable universe

There is no publicly traded (or privately held) company that operates inside NAICS 921140 — these are government offices. The investable universe is two adjacent things: (a) the debt these offices issue, and (b) the vendors and contractors that sell to them. Purity varies widely; defense- or federal-heavy revenue should not be mistaken for direct exposure to local executive/legislative offices. ("Ticker" = a stock's trading symbol; figures are approximate scale, not recommendations.)

Route A — the debt (municipal bonds). The most direct exposure.

Route B — the vendors (public equities). Closest to civic administration first; broader (and lower-purity) government exposure below.

"ERP" = enterprise resource planning (a government's core finance/HR/records system).

Route B (private). Much of the government-technology ("govtech") vendor base is privately or private-equity ("PE") owned and sells budgeting, procurement, agenda, records, and constituent-engagement software to exactly these boards:[13][21]

• OpenGov (owned by Cox), Granicus (Vista Equity Partners, with Harvest Partners in the ownership group), CivicPlus (Insight Partners), Euna Solutions, and CentralSquare — govtech roll-ups.
• Peraton (Veritas Capital) for federal government technology and mission services; Deloitte and PwC for public-sector consulting, assurance, and public-finance advisory.

Bottom line: few clean public "plays," one clear leader (Tyler) among local-government vendors, a wide but lower-purity set of federal contractors, and a very large, liquid debt market as the primary and most direct exposure.

5. How the money works

Because no owner takes profit, the "economics" of 921140 are public finance — how the offices fund themselves — and, for the vendor side, contract economics.

How the offices are funded (what a bond investor is underwriting):

• Own-source revenue — chiefly the property tax for counties and municipalities, plus sales/income taxes and fees for services.
• Intergovernmental transfers — state aid and federal grants (a large share of local budgets).
• Borrowing — general-obligation (GO) bonds, backed by the government's taxing power, and revenue bonds, backed by a specific project's income.[10]

Government spending flows through a fixed sequence — appropriation (budget authority) → obligation → outlay: a budget authorizes spending, an obligation is a binding commitment (a contract or purchase order), and an outlay is the eventual cash payment.[19] The office earns no commercial margin; in the national accounts, government "output" is valued at the cost of employee compensation, capital consumption, and purchased goods and services, not at a market selling price.[22]

For a bond investor, the metrics that matter are the ones the rating agencies (Moody's, S&P, Fitch) watch: the size and stability of the tax base, debt-service coverage, fund balance / reserves, and the weight of pension and OPEB ("Other Post-Employment Benefits," mainly retiree health care) liabilities. The return is tax-exempt interest — most muni interest is exempt from federal (and sometimes state/local) income tax, which is why individuals hold roughly two-thirds of the market.[9] Defaults are historically rare but real (Detroit, 2013; Jefferson County, Alabama; Puerto Rico), so credit quality is the core risk being priced.

How the vendors make money. Firms like Tyler earn multi-year, recurring subscription revenue — increasingly cloud/SaaS ("Software-as-a-Service") rather than one-time licenses — and benefit from very high switching costs: once a county runs its finance and permitting on one platform, it rarely rips it out. Tyler's subscription revenue grew about 21% year-over-year in mid-2025 even as total growth ran near 10%, showing the mix shift toward recurring cloud revenue.[12] For services contractors, economics turn on contract structure: fixed-price deals put cost-overrun risk on the vendor, while cost-reimbursement and time-and-materials contracts shift some delivery risk but invite audit and utilization pressure. Watch funded backlog, indirect-cost rates, recompete win rates, cash conversion, and prime-versus-subcontract mix. The common trade-off across both models is budget-cycle dependency — demand moves at the speed of government procurement.

6. What drives demand

• Population, tax base, and administrative complexity. More residents, businesses, and programs expand budgets, borrowing capacity, and the need for staff, records, meetings, and oversight. California, Texas, and Florida concentrate the largest government workforces.[6]
• Federal and state fiscal cycles. Pandemic-era aid (the American Rescue Plan Act, "ARPA") and infrastructure money (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, "IIJA") flowed through local governments and lifted spending and issuance; the wind-down of that aid is now a headwind.
• Interest rates. Lower rates cut borrowing costs and encourage issuance; 2024 set a record ~$500 billion in muni issuance.[8]
• Digital modernization and compliance. Aging legacy systems, cloud migration, cybersecurity, transparency/open-records mandates, online permitting, and AI adoption push these offices to buy modern software — the demand engine for the vendor equities.[11]
• Elections, mandates, and emergencies. New administrations, ballot measures, disasters, and new statutory requirements reshape budgets and can create supplemental demand.
• Budget timing. For federally exposed vendors, the U.S. fiscal year runs October 1–September 30, and continuing resolutions, shutdowns, or delayed awards can shift revenue between reporting periods without changing long-term needs.[20]

7. Regulation

This industry largely is government, so the question is what constrains the offices and the money around them.

On the offices (mostly state/local law):

• State law and constitutions set what localities may tax and borrow — home rule versus Dillon's Rule, statutory debt limits, and property-tax caps (California's Proposition 13 is the archetype).
• Balanced-budget requirements apply to most local governments, unlike the federal government.
• Open-meeting / "sunshine" and public-records laws govern how these bodies deliberate.
• Accounting and disclosure: the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) sets government financial-reporting rules; on the bond side, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) govern muni-market disclosure (notably SEC Rule 15c2-12 continuing disclosure).[10]

On the vendors that sell to government:

• Procurement rules dictate how governments buy — a source of both friction and moat for incumbents. Federal purchasing is governed by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), covering competition, acquisition planning, and labor requirements; state and local rules vary widely by jurisdiction.[16]
• Contractors also face procurement-integrity rules, audits, suspension/debarment risk, false-claims exposure, and cybersecurity requirements.
• Political influence is regulated separately: the Lobbying Disclosure Act requires covered lobbying registrations and reports to be public,[17] and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) administers federal campaign-finance disclosure (with separate state/local rules).[18]

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

Governments don't compete like firms, but two dynamics matter to investors:

• Fiscal competition between jurisdictions. A city council or county board holds a geographic monopoly, so "competition" runs through elections, public accountability, and the "vote with your feet" (Tiebout) contest for residents and employers via tax rates and services. That shapes tax bases and, in turn, credit quality. Outright consolidation of governments (city-county mergers, annexation, shared-services deals) happens but is slow and politically hard; the count of U.S. local governments has been broadly stable.[3]
• Rapid consolidation on the vendor side. The real M&A story is govtech and government services. Tyler Technologies holds an estimated ~11.5% share of the public-sector software market with 45,000-plus installations, and CentralSquare, OpenGov, Granicus, Euna, and CivicPlus have become PE-backed platforms rolling up smaller specialists.[13] Larger contractors compete on past performance, cleared personnel, contract vehicles, and the scale to finance long bids. The result is stronger distribution and switching costs for scaled vendors — but also more leverage, integration risk, and scrutiny over pricing.

9. Risks

For the debt (muni) route:

• Credit risk — tax-base erosion, revenue shortfalls, and (rarely) default.
• Pension / OPEB underfunding — a structural drag on many local balance sheets.
• Federal-aid cliffs — the roll-off of ARPA-era money tightens budgets.
• Interest-rate risk — bond prices fall when rates rise.
• Tax-law risk (forward-looking) — any move to curb the federal tax exemption on municipal interest would hit valuations across the market.

For the vendor (equity) route:

• Budget, appropriations, and procurement cycles — delayed funding, continuing resolutions, and shutdowns can pause hiring, contracting, and payments; sales are long and lumpy.
• Recompete and concentration risk — a lost contract renewal can remove an entire revenue stream, and many vendors lean heavily on one agency or program.
• Valuation sensitivity — even sticky recurring revenue re-prices sharply; Tyler and its peers trade on software multiples that expand and compress with the broader cycle.
• Compliance, leverage, and integration risk — bid protests, audits, false-claims exposure, and debt-funded roll-ups can all impair cash flow.

Cross-cutting: political/governance change, demographic decline in some regions, cybersecurity exposure across under-resourced local IT, and measurement risk — NAICS 921140 does not map cleanly to contractor revenue, so apparent "industry" growth may reflect unrelated defense, health, or infrastructure work.

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public-market routes.

• Debt: buy municipal bonds directly (a ladder of specific county/city GO or revenue bonds) or, more simply, hold a broad muni fund/ETF such as MUB or VTEB for diversified, tax-advantaged income tied to these governments.[10][15]
• Equity: own the vendors that sell into these offices — Tyler Technologies (TYL) as the closest pure-ish play, with Maximus (MMS) and Motorola Solutions (MSI) as adjacent exposures, and Booz Allen, Leidos, SAIC, CACI, Palantir, Amentum, and Parsons as broader (defense-heavy, low-purity) government exposure rather than 921140 proxies. Screen for government revenue as a share of total, civilian-versus-defense mix, funded backlog, recompete calendar, customer concentration, and valuation relative to organic growth.

Private routes.

• Private equity is the main door to the govtech vendor base (OpenGov, Granicus, Euna, CentralSquare, CivicPlus, Peraton are privately/PE-owned).[13][21]
• Direct municipal lending / separately managed muni portfolios and municipal/infrastructure funds give private-market investors tailored exposure to the debt side; private credit can also fund contractors with diversified customers and funded backlog. Diligence contract funding (not headline ceilings), renewal history, cash collection, compliance record, and concentration.

Outlook (editorial judgment, not fact). The direct public-office layer should remain durable but is unlikely to behave like a high-growth commercial industry — demand tracks population, fiscal capacity, technology needs, and political priorities. The investable supplier layer has attractive long-term themes in digital modernization, cybersecurity, records, and workflow automation, but near-term earnings stay uneven because appropriations, elections, contract transitions, and procurement delays can overpower underlying demand. The debt side hinges on the normalization of local budgets after federal aid rolls off, the rate environment, property-tax dynamics, and the political question of whether Washington preserves the muni tax exemption. The cleanest approach is to underwrite the exact exposure: which government pays, what is delivered, how long the contract lasts, and — for the debt — how strong the tax base and reserves are behind it.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Manual" (definition of 921140 and adjacent codes), 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/reference_files_tools/2022_NAICS_Manual.pdf; https://www.census.gov/naics/
2. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns" (coverage note: excludes Public Administration and most government employees). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
3. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (citing the 2022 Census of Governments), "The Number and Types of Local Governments in the U.S.," 2024. https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2024/march/local-governments-us-number-type
4. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 Census of Governments — Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll (ASPEP) Summary," 2023. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/econ/g23-aspep.html
5. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages — Annual Averages 2024," 2025. https://www.bls.gov/cew/publications/employment-and-wages-annual-averages/current/
6. Data USA, "Executive Offices & Legislative Bodies" industry-group profile (2024 employment and wages). https://datausa.io/profile/naics/executive-offices-legislative-bodies
7. SIFMA, "US Municipal Bonds Statistics" (~$4.2 trillion outstanding, year-end 2024), 2025. https://www.sifma.org/research/statistics/us-municipal-bonds-statistics
8. The Bond Buyer, "2024 municipal bond issuance sets new record" (~$500 billion), 2025. https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/2024-municipal-bond-issuance-sets-new-record
9. Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), "Get to Know the Muni Market" (individuals hold ~2/3 of the market). https://www.msrb.org/Get-Know-Muni-Market
10. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission / Investor.gov, "Municipal Bonds: An Overview" (general-obligation vs. revenue bonds). https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-bulletins-37
11. Apps Run the World, "Top 10 State and Local Government Software Vendors, Market Size and Forecast 2024–2029" (~$9.7B in 2024). https://www.appsruntheworld.com/top-10-state-and-local-government-software-vendors-and-market-forecast/
12. Tyler Technologies, Inc., FY2025 earnings releases / Form 10-K (revenue ~$2.33B; subscription growth), 2025–2026. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000860731; https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/tyl/revenue/
13. Civic IQ / Government Technology, "Government software vendors and Tyler Technologies market position," 2025–2026. https://civiciq.com/blog/best-government-procurement-software-for-municipalities-in-2026-opengov-vs-tyler-technologies-vs-euna-solutions-vs-planetbids; https://www.govtech.com/100
14. U.S. SEC EDGAR filings (Forms 10-K / annual reports) for Maximus (CIK 1032220), Motorola Solutions, Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, SAIC, CACI International, Palantir Technologies, Amentum Holdings, and Parsons Corp. (government-exposure and purity caveats), 2025–2026. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar
15. iShares / Morningstar, "iShares National Muni Bond ETF (MUB)" (~$39B assets). https://www.ishares.com/us/products/239766/ishares-national-amtfree-muni-bond-etf
16. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Acquisition.gov, current edition. https://www.acquisition.gov/browse/index/far
17. U.S. Senate, "Lobbying Disclosure Act: Registration of Lobbyists," current guidance. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/Lobbying/Lobby_Disclosure_Act/4_Registration_of_Lobbyists.htm
18. U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC), "Introduction to Campaign Finance," current guidance. https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/
19. U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), appropriations accounting (appropriation → obligation → outlay). https://www.gao.gov/products/b-257905
20. Congressional Research Service (CRS), "A Brief Overview of the Congressional Budget Process," 2022. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46468
21. Private/PE ownership disclosures: Peraton (Veritas Capital), Granicus (Vista Equity Partners; Harvest Partners), CivicPlus (Insight Partners), OpenGov (Cox), Deloitte, and PwC US. https://www.peraton.com/; https://granicus.com/company/; https://www.insightpartners.com/portfolio/civicplus/; https://www.pwc.com/government.html
22. U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), "2025 Annual Update of the National Economic Accounts" (government output valued at cost), 2025. https://apps.bea.gov/scb/issues/2025/11-november/1125-nea-annual-update.htm