Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
Utah City Spending Rankings
Utah has 17 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 1.5M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 64/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Utah's covered cities post a healthy average Fiscal Health Score of 64/100 (grade B). On the whole, Utah 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.
Utah Fiscal Profile
Across all covered Utah cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are parks at $1.7B and fire protection at $413.2M. That mix reflects Utah'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 17 Cities in Utah
Salt Lake City, UT
Pop. 201K
West Valley City, UT
Pop. 139K
West Jordan, UT
Pop. 116K
Provo, UT
Pop. 114K
Orem, UT
Pop. 97K
St. George, UT
Pop. 96K
Sandy, UT
Pop. 96K
Ogden, UT
Pop. 87K
Layton, UT
Pop. 82K
South Jordan, UT
Pop. 78K
Lehi, UT
Pop. 77K
Millcreek, UT
Pop. 64K
Taylorsville, UT
Pop. 60K
Herriman, UT
Pop. 55K
Logan, UT
Pop. 53K
Draper, UT
Pop. 51K
Murray, UT
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 Utah are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 17 cities in Utah with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 1.5M in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is Utah's average Fiscal Health Score?
Utah's 17 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 64/100. 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 Utah 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 Utah cities have the strongest fiscal health?
West Valley City (A), Provo (A), Lehi (A) rank among the top fiscal performers in Utah. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which Utah cities are most fiscally stressed?
Draper (F), Millcreek (C), West Jordan (C) rank toward the bottom of the Utah 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.
Utah has 17 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 1.5M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 64/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Utah's covered cities post a healthy average Fiscal Health Score of 64/100 (grade B). On the whole, Utah 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.
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.