This is our third Financial State of the Cities (FSOC) report, a comprehensive analysis of the fiscal health of the nation’s 75 most populous cities based on fiscal year 2017 comprehensive annual financial reports.
At the end of the FY 2017, 63 cities did not have enough money to pay all of their bills. This means that to balance the budget, elected officials have not included the true costs of the government in their budget calculations and have pushed costs onto future taxpayers. TIA divides the amount of money needed to pay bills by the number of city taxpayers to come up with the Taxpayer Burden™. If there is a surplus, that number is likewise divided by the number of taxpayers to come up with the Taxpayer Surplus™. We then rank the cities based on these measures.
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