Welcome to Reason Foundation's fiscal visualization initiative. This dashboard compiles the key elements of governmental financial statements, covering all states and the top 100 municipalities, counties and school districts for fiscal years 2020, 2021 and 2022. Reason Foundation has also contextualized these financial statement elements by developing standard financial and liquidity ratios and other comparative analyses to facilitate cross-jurisdictional comparisons of the reporting entities’ financial health.
A historical challenge in comparing the financial health of state and local governments across America has been that these entities do not prepare their financial statements in a machine-readable format. In some cases, certain reporting entities also fail to adhere to governmental accounting standards generally accepted in the United States. Reason Foundation has responded to this gap by developing a proprietary automated approach to data extraction of key elements from the financial statements, the results of which are subsequently confirmed by manual human review.
We hope to provide valuable insights for policymakers, journalists, market participants, and other stakeholders by placing their state, municipality, county, or school district in contrast to their peers – and the broader context of the country. This initial tool provides these insights for the 100 largest municipalities, counties and school districts in America, and all 50 states, for fiscal years 2020, 2021 and 2022. Reason Foundation is also in the process of developing a second, comprehensive tool that will include every municipality, county and school district that has issued financial statements to the public.
In the dropdown box below, users can select the element of the financial statement of interest and view summary statistics revealing the distribution of values across entities and trends over time. Key financial statement elements have been extracted from both the Statement of Activities and the Statement of Net Position for each entity. As a result, users can compare key measures of revenues, expenditures, assets, and liabilities.
Distribution of School Districts by reported financial measures.
Liabilities are monies currently owed for services already rendered or products already purchased, or promises to make future payments against past borrowing. The liabilities reported here therefore reflect the accumulation of debt-financed spending by state and local governments. In general, liabilities result from spending in excess of revenues. In some cases, however, liabilities may be fully or partially offset by assets, such as an accumulation of cash deposited into a restricted debt services fund to pay off a bond when it comes due.
It can be misleading, however, to compare total liabilities directly to the total assets reported by a state or local government. That’s because liabilities represent financial obligations that the government is required to pay while a sizable portion of reported assets may be nonfinancial in nature because they reflect the value of physical infrastructure like public roads or bridges. These long-term capital assets cannot be easily liquidated to pay down liabilities as they fall due.
Entity | Total Liabilities |
---|---|
California | $498,154,488,000 |
Illinois | $247,942,779,000 |
New York | $245,485,000,000 |
New Jersey | $224,574,201,619 |
Texas | $221,174,854,000 |
Massachusetts | $119,941,152,000 |
Connecticut | $97,471,207,000 |
Washington | $94,852,592,000 |
Pennsylvania | $76,883,947,000 |
Florida | $61,828,638,000 |
Total assets represent the combined value of all resources owned by a government. These assets include both financial and nonfinancial resources, such as cash, investments, receivables, land, buildings, and infrastructure like roads and bridges. Financial assets provide liquidity and can be used to meet immediate financial obligations, while nonfinancial assets contribute to the long-term operational capacity and service delivery of the government.
It is important to note that total assets encompass both easily convertible financial resources and physical infrastructure that, although valuable, do not provide immediate liquidity. This distinction is crucial when comparing total assets to total liabilities. Financial assets are readily available for spending or debt repayment, whereas nonfinancial assets, despite their value, do not offer the same financial flexibility.
Entity | Total Assets |
---|---|
Texas | $475,449,878,000 |
California | $467,861,788,000 |
New York | $260,647,000,000 |
Florida | $204,321,276,000 |
Washington | $133,313,411,000 |
North Carolina | $109,276,007,000 |
Alaska | $104,675,321,000 |
Pennsylvania | $98,197,157,000 |
Ohio | $96,693,208,000 |
Georgia | $87,837,882,000 |
The debt ratio is a financial metric that represents the proportion of a government's total assets that are financed by outstanding debt. This ratio is calculated by dividing the total liabilities by the total assets. The resulting figure provides a snapshot of the financial leverage and stability of the government entity, indicating the extent to which it relies on borrowed funds to finance its operations and investments.
A higher debt ratio suggests that a significant portion of the government's assets are financed through debt, which can imply greater financial risk and potential challenges in meeting debt obligations. Conversely, a lower debt ratio indicates that the government relies less on debt and has a larger cushion of assets relative to its liabilities, suggesting a more stable financial position in which the public owns its assets outright.
Entity | Debt Ratio |
---|---|
Illinois | 325.3% |
New Jersey | 296.3% |
Connecticut | 202.6% |
Massachusetts | 197.4% |
California | 106.5% |
Vermont | 101.7% |
Hawaii | 100.6% |
Kentucky | 94.2% |
New York | 94.2% |
Delaware | 91.7% |
A government’s ability to repay its debts on time can be approximated by determining whether revenues exceed the sum of expenses and current liabilities. If:
Revenues – (Expenses + Current Liabilities) > 0,
then a government’s net financial position will improve and it will be able to timely repay its debts.
Practically, however, many governments roll over their debts, such as by issuing new bonds to help them pay off bonds falling due. This practice can allow a government to meet its obligations as they fall due even while its net position deteriorates by assuming more debt. As a government’s fiscal position deteriorates, so too will its ability to secure new debt on favorable terms. In other words, if spending routinely exceeds revenues and a government continues to roll over its debt, bond purchasers may charge higher effective interest rates or may even refuse to provide any new financing. Free cash flow is a key metric for forecasting an entity’s long-term fiscal health and creditworthiness.
Entity | Free Cash Flow |
---|---|
Florida | $14,347,742,000 |
Texas | $5,658,838,000 |
Kentucky | $5,143,606,000 |
Iowa | $3,535,907,000 |
New Jersey | $2,931,777,120 |
Massachusetts | $2,642,167,000 |
Utah | $2,493,066,000 |
Minnesota | $2,211,440,000 |
West Virginia | $1,933,815,000 |
Maryland | $1,803,148,000 |
Net Pension Liability signifies the difference between the obligations a government has already accrued to offer pensions to its existing pool of current and retired employees and the money it has set aside to finance those pensions. Public-sector pension plans may or may not include a cost-sharing component, in which a portion of employee pay is withheld to make contributions to the pension fund. In jurisdictions without cost-sharing, the government makes the entire contribution to the pension fund and pension fund assets grow over time as they are invested. However, most governments are contractually obligated to pay out defined liabilities regardless of amounts contributed or the earnings on investment within a pension fund. The difference between the total assets held in a pension fund and the future payments that fund will make to retired employees (discounted to the present) is the net pension liability. As with the Net OPEB Liability, this value represents the amounts employees have already accrued at the time of the financial statements, although employees in jurisdictions with defined-benefit pensions will continue to accrue new pension benefits each year.
A key caveat in evaluating an entity’s Net Pension Liability or Net OPEB Liability, is that these values effectively recognize future gains on assets that have not yet been realized. The actuarial method for determining the present value of these future liabilities is to forecast the expected stream of payments to beneficiaries and discount each of those payments to the present at the annual rate of return that fund managers believe they can achieve by investing pension fund assets. This calculation conflates liabilities and assets and is the only instance in which generally accepted accounting standards allow an entity to recognize speculative future gains that have not been realized at the date of the balance sheet. Accounting standards generally accepted for use within the private sector never allow for the recognition of speculative future gains in this manner.
Entity | Net Pension Liability |
---|---|
Illinois | $139,846,404,000 |
New Jersey | $75,073,670,300 |
California | $54,169,128,000 |
Connecticut | $36,132,877,000 |
Massachusetts | $34,806,645,000 |
Texas | $30,883,865,000 |
Kentucky | $25,034,578,000 |
Maryland | $13,366,859,000 |
Pennsylvania | $12,550,399,000 |
Indiana | $9,730,464,000 |
Net OPEB Liability signifies the difference between the obligations a government has already accrued for Other Post-Employment Benefits for employees (such as retiree health care) and the money it has set aside to pay these benefits. As a net value, it is not the total obligation toward Other Post-Employment Benefits—it is simply the unfunded portion of this liability. Importantly, this value represents the contractual benefits that employees have already earned as of the date of the financial statements and not the total amount that a government will ultimately pay out in Other Post-Employment Benefits because employees continue to accrue new benefits each year.
Entity | Net OPEB Liability |
---|---|
California | $94,283,183,000 |
New Jersey | $88,854,449,562 |
Texas | $77,666,435,000 |
New York | $67,712,000,000 |
Illinois | $46,611,408,000 |
Connecticut | $20,916,477,000 |
Pennsylvania | $19,492,810,000 |
Massachusetts | $15,217,822,000 |
Maryland | $13,434,828,000 |
Delaware | $9,319,243,000 |