Financial State of the Cities An Annual Report by Truth in Accounting

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I hope those cities with a "surplus" are writing checks back to their taxpayers.

hahahahahahahAHAHAHAhAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by craigs

The data beneath the spin may or may not be true. I will not grant the benefit of the doubt to an entity that exists solely to provide propaganda touting the right-wing extremist Koch agenda.

It seems to a person like you, anything "right-wing" is extremist, so you are limited I suppose.

In any case, stop pretending to be so intellectually/academically honest. If this list was "Most Racist Cities" from the SPLC you would accept it 100%.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I hope those cities with a "surplus" are writing checks back to their taxpayers.

hahahahaha yeah right. Or investing heavily in transit or something?

Nah, probably just a lot of pay raises.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Obadno

What I find interesting actually its that Politically, Demographically and Financially these cities are all over the place.

I am not too surprised by this, honestly. In the US, we are obsessed with national politics. There is a *clear* divide between the two sides. I am extremely conservative nationally, I believe our founders wanted a limited federal government for many reasons. Locally though, I can go any way. So, I think local Republicans and Democrats are more alike than we might otherwise think. Sure, some Democrats may push some political "sanctuary city" initiative or some conservative mayor might talk big on protecting the taxpayers or whatever, but in the end, things need to happen in the city, hence spending issues.

[SunDevil]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

I am not too surprised by this, honestly. In the US, we are obsessed with national politics. There is a *clear* divide between the two sides. I am extremely conservative nationally, I believe our founders wanted a limited federal government for many reasons. Locally though, I can go any way. So, I think local Republicans and Democrats are more alike than we might otherwise think. Sure, some Democrats may push some political "sanctuary city" initiative or some conservative mayor might talk big on protecting the taxpayers or whatever, but in the end, things need to happen in the city, hence spending issues.

While I applaud your open mindedness, there is a strong divide on the Phoenix city council between conservative and moderate left members. There is one particular member who ignores all the economic development along the light rail corridor he disproved of in the first place and has supported organization efforts against expansion when residents of Phoenix voters had already approved expansion. His name is Sal Diciccio and even his own constituents voted for expansion.

[Dariusb]

#9 is Arlington but which one? Texas or Virginia?

[floor23]

It's a interesting list, but it forgets to factor in that these debts are going to be paid over many decades/generations and governments can refinance their debts much easier than an individual/household can. The "per-capita taxpayer burden" is put in one giant sum for shock value. It's easy to be stunned by New York City's $63,100 tax burden, but then you realize they divided NYC total municipal debt by its number of residents; yet everyone knows NYC's tax base extends far beyond its own borders. Let's also not forget that NYC is one of the countries oldest cities so it's had many more generations to accrue public debt.

The list also doesn't take into account the relationship between counties and city governments. Some of these local governments are consolidated city-counties; while others benefit from being under the jurisdiction of counties that control most of the tax base and spending. For example, both Las Vegas and Henderson are so high on the list, but you really can't look at them on their own merit without taking into account that Clark County receives the lions share of tax revenue and provides funding for the vast majority of public services in the region. If these cities had to take on the expenses of their presiding county, would their debt levels be so low? Probably not. Seattle, Los Angeles, Anaheim, and Santa Ana are a few other examples I could think of (I'm sure there are many more examples) where the county either pays for a portion if not the majority of the regions public services.

A better way to organize this list would be add in the counties debt+city debt so we can better understand these local governments debt levels. I find it interesting that TIA doesn't have "2020 Financial State of The Counties" list, and I think its because making one would go against their overall political narrative. Make a list for counties and all of a sudden a lot of southern and Midwestern local governments aren't looking so fiscally conservative after all.

[floor23]

Just out of curiosity, I went and checked out my own local governments finances and the per taxpayer debt burden for the City & County of Honolulu is waaaay off by more $20,000+ per taxpayer. C&C of Honolulu only has $2.6B in debt and is sitting on almost $1B in reserves. Pensions are controlled and financed by the state so I don't know where these TIA people get their numbers from, but its clear they are more political than factual. Makes me question if any of these numbers thrown around are correct. (My sources are county financial documents and an independent P3 Rail study outlining the amount of debt the counties could incur.)

I just read their 2020 Financial State of the State and the number is wrong for my state as well.

I wouldn't trust anything this group puts out.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

While I applaud your open mindedness, there is a strong divide on the Phoenix city council between conservative and moderate left members. There is one particular member who ignores all the economic development along the light rail corridor he disproved of in the first place and has supported organization efforts against expansion when residents of Phoenix voters had already approved expansion. His name is Sal Diciccio and even his own constituents voted for expansion.

You need to understand how the districts work. Diciccio represents parts of the city that not only dont have light rail, BUT WILL NEVER have light rail. Its literally in his constituents interest to not support expenditure on a system those citizens will most likely rarely if ever even use the system much less have it impact their neighborhoods.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Because NYC and Chicago have totally different issues. NYC has high taxes on residents and (especially) businesses, hence no revenues issues. NYC has a spending problem, Chicago has a revenues problem.

Chicago has no city income tax, its commercial property taxes are a joke, and gives away billions in potential tax revenues in TIFs (Tax Increment Financing). TIFs are illegal in NYC.

Commercial property in Manhattan is taxed at multiples more than elsewhere in the U.S. Not the amount, the rate. So the revenues are insane. NYC has a bigger budget than Texas. Meanwhile Chicago is literally giving away money to commercial property owners in the best neighborhoods via TIFs.

Also, unlike Chicago, NYC can't run deficits. Since the late 70's financial crisis, it has been barred from deficits and funky accounting practices, which are practically religion in Chicago.

I am actually surprised we only have $250 billion worth of debt (I am assuming this is mostly pensions). This is not a big number at all considering NYC revenues (NY city budget is equivalent to the next top 8 biggest cities combined or something crazy like that). Hopefully, it doesn't get worse.
Also, I believe the deficits only talks about current account deficits, since NYC obviously runs deficits in the form of unfunded liabilities (various promises by politicians through various programs that NYC will have to pay in the future and not current budget).