Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
New York City Spending Rankings
New York has 18 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 10.3M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 56/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. New York's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 56/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some New York 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.
New York Fiscal Profile
Across all covered New York cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are education at $359.1B and fire protection at $96.0B. That mix reflects New York'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 18 Cities in New York
New York, NY
Pop. 8.6M
Buffalo, NY
Pop. 277K
Rochester, NY
Pop. 211K
Yonkers, NY
Pop. 210K
Syracuse, NY
Pop. 146K
Albany, NY
Pop. 100K
New Rochelle, NY
Pop. 81K
Cheektowaga, NY
Pop. 76K
Mount Vernon, NY
Pop. 73K
Schenectady, NY
Pop. 68K
Brentwood, NY
Pop. 65K
Utica, NY
Pop. 65K
White Plains, NY
Pop. 59K
Hempstead, NY
Pop. 59K
Tonawanda Town, NY
Pop. 57K
Troy, NY
Pop. 51K
Levittown, NY
Pop. 51K
Irondequoit, NY
Pop. 51K
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 New York are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 18 cities in New York with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 10.3M in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is New York's average Fiscal Health Score?
New York's 18 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 56/100. 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 New York 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 New York cities have the strongest fiscal health?
Cheektowaga (B), White Plains (B), Utica (B) rank among the top fiscal performers in New York. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which New York cities are most fiscally stressed?
Troy (F), Schenectady (D), Rochester (D) rank toward the bottom of the New York 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.
New York has 18 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 10.3M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 56/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. New York's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 56/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some New York 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.
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.