Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
South Carolina City Spending Rankings
South Carolina has 7 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 689K in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 66/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. South Carolina's covered cities post a healthy average Fiscal Health Score of 66/100 (grade B). On the whole, South Carolina 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.
South Carolina Fiscal Profile
Across all covered South Carolina cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are parks at $1.4B and fire protection at $720.6M. That mix reflects South Carolina'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 7 Cities in South Carolina
Charleston, SC
Pop. 150K
Columbia, SC
Pop. 137K
North Charleston, SC
Pop. 116K
Mount Pleasant, SC
Pop. 91K
Rock Hill, SC
Pop. 74K
Greenville, SC
Pop. 71K
Summerville, SC
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 South Carolina are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 7 cities in South Carolina with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 689K in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is South Carolina's average Fiscal Health Score?
South Carolina's 7 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 66/100. 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 South Carolina 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 South Carolina cities have the strongest fiscal health?
Rock Hill (A), North Charleston (A), Mount Pleasant (B) rank among the top fiscal performers in South Carolina. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which South Carolina cities are most fiscally stressed?
Greenville (D), Charleston (C), Columbia (B) rank toward the bottom of the South Carolina 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.
South Carolina has 7 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 689K in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 66/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. South Carolina's covered cities post a healthy average Fiscal Health Score of 66/100 (grade B). On the whole, South Carolina 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.
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.
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.