Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
Ohio City Spending Rankings
Ohio has 18 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 2.9M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 57/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Ohio's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 57/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Ohio 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.
Ohio Fiscal Profile
Across all covered Ohio cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are parks at $3.6B and fire protection at $2.5B. That mix reflects Ohio'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 Ohio
Columbus, OH
Pop. 902K
Cleveland, OH
Pop. 370K
Cincinnati, OH
Pop. 309K
Toledo, OH
Pop. 270K
Akron, OH
Pop. 190K
Dayton, OH
Pop. 137K
Parma, OH
Pop. 81K
Canton, OH
Pop. 71K
Lorain, OH
Pop. 65K
Hamilton, OH
Pop. 63K
Youngstown, OH
Pop. 60K
Springfield, OH
Pop. 59K
Kettering, OH
Pop. 58K
Elyria, OH
Pop. 53K
Cuyahoga Falls, OH
Pop. 51K
Lakewood, OH
Pop. 51K
Middletown, OH
Pop. 51K
Newark, OH
Pop. 50K
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 Ohio are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 18 cities in Ohio with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 2.9M in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is Ohio's average Fiscal Health Score?
Ohio's 18 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 57/100. 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 Ohio 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 Ohio cities have the strongest fiscal health?
Cincinnati (A), Akron (B), Cleveland (B) rank among the top fiscal performers in Ohio. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which Ohio cities are most fiscally stressed?
Middletown (F), Canton (D), Cuyahoga Falls (D) rank toward the bottom of the Ohio 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.
Ohio has 18 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 2.9M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 57/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Ohio's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 57/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Ohio 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.
this entity is one of the data points covered by this site’s U.S. municipal and county government finances dataset. The detail above comes directly from the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances; the context that follows situates the headline numbers against the broader distribution across U.S. cities, counties, and states.
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.
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.