Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
Tennessee City Spending Rankings
Tennessee has 15 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 2.6M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 58/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Tennessee's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 58/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Tennessee 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.
Tennessee Fiscal Profile
Across all covered Tennessee cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are education at $19.8B and parks at $2.9B. That mix reflects Tennessee'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
All 15 Cities in Tennessee
Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government (balance), TN
Pop. 684K
Memphis, TN
Pop. 630K
Knoxville, TN
Pop. 192K
Chattanooga, TN
Pop. 181K
Clarksville, TN
Pop. 168K
Murfreesboro, TN
Pop. 153K
Franklin, TN
Pop. 84K
Johnson City, TN
Pop. 71K
Jackson, TN
Pop. 68K
Hendersonville, TN
Pop. 62K
Bartlett, TN
Pop. 57K
Kingsport, TN
Pop. 55K
Smyrna, TN
Pop. 54K
Spring Hill, TN
Pop. 51K
Collierville, TN
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 Tennessee are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 15 cities in Tennessee with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 2.6M in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is Tennessee's average Fiscal Health Score?
Tennessee's 15 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 58/100. 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 Tennessee 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 Tennessee cities have the strongest fiscal health?
Franklin (A), Clarksville (A), Chattanooga (B) rank among the top fiscal performers in Tennessee. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which Tennessee cities are most fiscally stressed?
Johnson City (F), Murfreesboro (D), Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government (balance) (D) rank toward the bottom of the Tennessee 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.
Tennessee has 15 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 2.6M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 58/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Tennessee's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 58/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Tennessee 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.
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.