Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
Arkansas City Spending Rankings
Arkansas has 9 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 806K in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 65/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Arkansas's covered cities post a healthy average Fiscal Health Score of 65/100 (grade B). On the whole, Arkansas cities run balanced budgets, manageable debt loads, and adequately funded pension systems. Individual cities still vary, the rankings below show which are pulling above and below the state average.
Arkansas Fiscal Profile
Across all covered Arkansas cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are parks at $960.1M and fire protection at $284.4M. That mix reflects Arkansas's overall service-delivery model, in some states police and fire dominate; in others, education or roads take the largest aggregate share when cities operate their own school districts.
Healthiest and Most Stressed Cities
Top Fiscal Performers
Most Fiscally Stressed
All 9 Cities in Arkansas
Little Rock, AR
Pop. 202K
Fayetteville, AR
Pop. 95K
Fort Smith, AR
Pop. 89K
Springdale, AR
Pop. 87K
Jonesboro, AR
Pop. 78K
Rogers, AR
Pop. 70K
Conway, AR
Pop. 65K
North Little Rock, AR
Pop. 64K
Bentonville, AR
Pop. 55K
How These Rankings Are Calculated
City Fiscal Health Scores combine budget balance and reserves (25%), debt burden per capita (20%), pension funded ratio (20%), spending efficiency (15%), revenue diversity (10%), and three-year trend direction (10%). All inputs come from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. For the largest cities, we cross-reference the Lincoln Institute's Fiscally Standardized Cities database to adjust for school-district and county overlap. Pension data comes from the Public Plans Database. Best-practice weighting follows guidance from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). Read the full methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many cities in Arkansas are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 9 cities in Arkansas with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 806K in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is Arkansas's average Fiscal Health Score?
Arkansas's 9 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 65/100. The score combines budget balance and reserves, debt burden per capita, pension funding, spending efficiency, revenue diversity, and three-year trend direction. Each city is benchmarked against population peers, so a 200,000-resident city is compared to other mid-size cities, not against the largest cities in the country.
Where does Arkansas city spending data come from?
Every figure on this page is drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, with population estimates from the American Community Survey. For the largest cities, we cross-reference the Lincoln Institute's Fiscally Standardized Cities database to adjust for school-district overlap. Federal grant flows come from USASpending.gov; pension data, where available, comes from the Public Plans Database.
Which Arkansas cities have the strongest fiscal health?
Little Rock (A), Bentonville (B), Springdale (B) rank among the top fiscal performers in Arkansas. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which Arkansas cities are most fiscally stressed?
Jonesboro (D), Conway (C), Fayetteville (C) rank toward the bottom of the Arkansas fiscal health distribution. Common stress signals include pension underfunding, elevated debt service, and revenue concentration in a single tax source. A low score is a screening signal, not a verdict, always read the city's audited Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (ACFR) before drawing conclusions.
Arkansas has 9 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 806K in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 65/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Arkansas's covered cities post a healthy average Fiscal Health Score of 65/100 (grade B). On the whole, Arkansas cities run balanced budgets, manageable debt loads, and adequately funded pension systems. Individual cities still vary, the rankings below show which are pulling above and below the state average.
For this entity, the underlying data on this page comes from the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. The breakdown above is the federal record; the paragraphs below add the per-entity context that makes the headline numbers usable for a real decision rather than just a data lookup.
Every number on this page links back to the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances; the methodology page describes the inputs, refresh cadence, and known limitations of the underlying data product.
Practical use of this page is in combination with the comparison and ranking pages elsewhere on the site, which surface the same data for this entity’s peers within U.S. cities, counties, and states. A single-entity reading without peer context can be misleading when an entity is an outlier on one axis but typical on another.