Method and sources

Every figure in a Factum report carries one of three labels. No figure is invented; no figure is unlabeled.

The three labels

Public record: A named record with a URL and a date. State DOT bid tabs, public building awards, published wage rates, city fee schedules, utility tariffs, NOAA normals, FEMA flood maps, assessor records, permit dates.
Declared on the permit: City permit valuations, declared on the permit, not an awarded bid. A permit value is what the applicant declared; it is not a bid or an award.
Modeled: Any figure without a public record. It gets its own line and its own label. It is never folded into a total without the label. The method is stated in the note.

How a cell publishes

A cell is a pay-item code in a quantity band, in a county. A cell publishes when it has at least 20 observations from at least 10 lettings spanning at least 24 months. Below that threshold the cell is not published and any figure from it is Modeled. The range is computed from the dispersion of the records, never asserted or configured.

A modeled figure gets its own line, its own label, and a note stating the method. It is never folded into a total without the label. Cost books are used only when a license key is present in Secrets; otherwise the figure is Modeled.

Record hosts by state

State	Source	Host	Format
TX	TxDOT bid tabulations	data.texas.gov/d/de7b-7dna	API (Socrata)
TX	Austin permit valuations	data.austintexas.gov	API (Socrata)
TX	Dallas permit valuations	data.dallascityhall.com	API (Socrata)
TX	Fort Worth permit valuations	data.fortworthtexas.gov	API (Socrata)
TX	San Antonio permit valuations	data.sanantonio.gov	API (Socrata)
TX	Arlington permit valuations	data.arlingtontx.gov	API (Socrata)
TX	City and county procurement awards	Various agency portals	PDF bid tabs
Federal	SAM.gov wage determinations	sam.gov	PDF
All	NOAA climate normals	ncei.noaa.gov	API
All	FEMA flood maps	fema.gov	API