Skip to main content
Data from U.S. Census Bureau · 2026 · Methodology
CitySpend

About CitySpend

Where does your city spend its money?

What we do

CitySpend makes local-government budgets legible by breaking spending into per-capita categories you can compare across cities.

We focus on U.S. municipal and county government finances. Every page on cityspend.org is built from the U.S. Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, cited and linkable so readers can trace any number back to its source.

Who this is for

CitySpend is built for residents, journalists, civic-tech teams, and candidates for local office.

Why this exists

Public data on U.S. municipal and county government finances is technically free, but practically locked behind file formats, acronyms, and paywalled dashboards. CitySpendexists to close that gap: take the raw federal and public-sector data, and turn it into pages a normal person can read in thirty seconds.

How we work

  • Primary source only. We pull from the U.S. Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances and cite the exact dataset and version on every page.
  • No invented numbers. If a figure is not in the underlying public data, it does not appear on cityspend.org. We never generate synthetic statistics to fill gaps.
  • Refreshed on a schedule. Data is refetched on a published cadence — you can see the "Last updated" date on every dataset page.
  • Corrections welcome. Readers flag issues all the time. When the source fixes a record, CitySpend follows.

Independence

CitySpend is an independent publication. We are not funded, owned, or directed by any of the agencies, companies, or organizations that appear in our data. Hosting is paid for by advertising — see our Privacy Policy for details — and we do not take paid placements, sponsored rankings, or "remove-my-entry" fees.

History

CitySpend launched in 2025 as part of a small portfolio of independent public-data sites. It has been maintained and updated continuously since.

Contact

Tips, corrections, data-partnership questions, and press inquiries: [email protected]. More options on our contact page.