What Are Cities Spending Big On ? Increasingly, It’s Debt.
▻http://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-legacy-cities-bills-debt.html
Merritt Research Services provided Governing with data on current debt service, pension costs and other post-employment benefit (OPEB) expenses for cities with populations exceeding 500,000. These three cost drivers collectively averaged nearly a quarter of total governmental fund expenditures in recent years. What’s worrisome is that legacy costs are rising, taking up ever-larger shares of budgets. For the large cities reviewed, the three line items accounted for a median of 22.4 percent of fiscal 2016 governmental fund spending, up from 19.8 percent in fiscal 2011. In some big cities, the increase has been much greater. Consider Jacksonville, Fla. Debt, pensions and OPEB made up less than 20 percent of expenditures there in 2008. Since then they have climbed to about 32 percent in recent budgets.