Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
Colorado City Spending Rankings
Colorado has 20 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 3.3M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 54/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Colorado's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 54/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Colorado cities are running clean books and adequately funded pensions; others are showing strain on debt service or pension contributions. The split is visible in the rankings below.
Colorado Fiscal Profile
Across all covered Colorado cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are parks at $5.8B and fire protection at $2.9B. That mix reflects Colorado'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 20 Cities in Colorado
Denver, CO
Pop. 711K
Colorado Springs, CO
Pop. 480K
Aurora, CO
Pop. 387K
Fort Collins, CO
Pop. 169K
Lakewood, CO
Pop. 156K
Thornton, CO
Pop. 142K
Arvada, CO
Pop. 123K
Westminster, CO
Pop. 116K
Pueblo, CO
Pop. 111K
Greeley, CO
Pop. 108K
Centennial, CO
Pop. 108K
Boulder, CO
Pop. 107K
Highlands Ranch, CO
Pop. 102K
Longmont, CO
Pop. 98K
Loveland, CO
Pop. 77K
Castle Rock, CO
Pop. 74K
Broomfield, CO
Pop. 74K
Grand Junction, CO
Pop. 66K
Commerce City, CO
Pop. 63K
Parker, CO
Pop. 59K
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 Colorado are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 20 cities in Colorado with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 3.3M in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is Colorado's average Fiscal Health Score?
Colorado's 20 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 54/100. 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 Colorado 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 Colorado cities have the strongest fiscal health?
Commerce City (A), Centennial (A), Parker (B) rank among the top fiscal performers in Colorado. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which Colorado cities are most fiscally stressed?
Castle Rock (D), Loveland (D), Greeley (D) rank toward the bottom of the Colorado 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.
Colorado has 20 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 3.3M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 54/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Colorado's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 54/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Colorado cities are running clean books and adequately funded pensions; others are showing strain on debt service or pension contributions. The split is visible in the rankings below.
The this entity record above pulls directly from the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. What follows is the per-entity context — how this entity sits in the broader U.S. municipal and county government finances distribution and which underlying factors drive the headline numbers.
The methodology behind every numeric value on this page is publicly documented on the the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances portal and described in detail on this site’s methodology page. Refresh cadence varies by underlying series; the page surfaces the as-of date for each number so readers can trace any figure back to the source release.
For readers using this page as a decision input, the related-entity pages elsewhere on the site provide the comparison set. The most useful comparison for this entity is typically a peer within U.S. cities, counties, and states with similar size, similar exposure, or similar geography — not the national-level summary alone.