Fiscal Health Score
CitySpend's proprietary 0-100 composite score (graded A through F) measuring a city's overall financial health across six weighted factors.
How It Works
The Fiscal Health Score evaluates: budget balance and reserves (25%), debt burden relative to peers (20%), pension funding ratio (20%), spending efficiency (15%), revenue diversity (10%), and 3-year fiscal trend direction (10%). Cities are scored against their population peer group (large 250K+, midsize 100-250K, small 50-100K) to ensure fair comparisons. The score is designed to give taxpayers, journalists, and bond investors a quick read on whether a city's finances are sustainable.
Related Terms
- Funded Ratio — The percentage of a pension plan's projected liabilities that are covered by current assets. A plan with $80 in assets for every $100 in liabilities has an 80% funded ratio.
- Debt Per Capita — A city's total outstanding debt divided by its population — a key metric for comparing debt burdens across cities of different sizes.
- Revenue Diversity — The degree to which a city's revenue comes from multiple sources (property tax, sales tax, fees, grants) rather than being concentrated in a single stream.
- Spending Efficiency — A measure of how effectively a city converts spending into services — comparing per-capita costs to service quality outcomes and peer benchmarks.
About This Definition
This definition is part of the CitySpend Municipal Finance Glossary — 59 terms explaining how city governments fund and manage public services. All definitions are written in plain language for taxpayers, journalists, students, and municipal bond investors.