Charlotte’s fiscal health earns it ‘sunshine city’ distinction
(The Center Square) – Charlotte recently was named a “Top 5 Sunshine City” by the nonpartisan think tank Truth in Accounting (TIA) in its fifth annual Financial State of the Cities report.
TIA examined the fiscal health of the 75 most-populous U.S. cities and graded and ranked the cities accordingly. The 2021 report is based on fiscal year 2019 comprehensive annual financial reports.
“At the end of the fiscal year 2019, 62 cities did not have enough money to pay all their bills,” the report’s executive summary read. “This means that to balance the budget, elected officials did not include the true costs of the government in their budget calculations and have pushed costs onto future taxpayers.”
Charlotte was among the top five of the 13 cities that had enough money to pay its bills, earning it the “sunshine” distinction. The city ranked fifth out of the 75 cities examined and earned a B grade. Charlotte ranked third in last year’s report.
“Charlotte moved down in our rankings this year and experienced a 15 percent decrease in its financial position,” the report said. “The city’s pension plans had low investment returns. Furthermore, the city’s firefighters plan changed its assumptions and lowered its discount rate, which increased the pension liability.”
TIA’s analysis found Charlotte had a taxpayer surplus of $3,000 for every taxpayer in the city. TIA divides the amount of money available after a city pays its bills by the number of city taxpayers to determine the taxpayer surplus. Charlotte had $2.8 billion available to pay $2.1 billion worth of bills, the TIA analysis found.
The four other “sunshine” cities ahead of Charlotte were Irvine, California ($4,100 surplus per taxpayer); the District of Columbia ($3,400); Lincoln, Nebraska ($3,400); and Stockton, California ($3,000).
TIA’s analysis found the total debt for the 75 most-populous cities was more than $333.5 billion.
The top five “sinkhole” cities with taxpayer burdens were New York City ($68,200 tax burden per taxpayer), Chicago ($41,100), Honolulu ($29,600), Philadelphia ($25,700) and Nashville, Tennessee ($22,000).
North Carolina cities Raleigh and Greensboro also appeared in the TIA report.
Raleigh was one of the 13 cities that had enough money to pay its bills. It ranked eighth and received a grade of B, having $1 billion to pay $712.7 million worth of bills. The $308.2 million surplus resulted in a taxpayer surplus of $2,200.
Greensboro ranked 18th and received a grade of C, having $390.2 million to pay $478 million worth of bills. The $87.8 million shortfall resulted in a taxpayer burden of $1,000.
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