Budget Priorities Methodology

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Center for Popular Democracy researchers evaluated each city’s budget based on a full set of criteria as developed in the Reform/Transform toolkit in collaboration with policy experts and advocates. We assessed expenditures on policing and corrections compared to some of the resources and programs that truly keep communities safe: jobs programs, mental health services, and youth development programs. In each city, we looked at both the total operating budget and the general fund budget because each provides useful information: the general fund is the most discretionary part of a jurisdiction’s budget, over which local elected officials have most influence; the total budget shows all sources of funding. In some jurisdictions, the total operating budget and total departmental budgets included capital funds; we noted whether or not the budget analysis for each jurisdiction includes capital funds.

When assessing spending on police and corrections, jobs programs, mental health services, and youth development programs, we reported the total department budgets that house these programs and services--not specific programs within department budgets or individual line item expenditures. In most cases, jobs programs, mental health services, and youth development programs are only one small part of the work of a department. (For example, many cities’ youth programming is found within their Parks Department.) Because there are many inconsistencies between how cities report information at the programmatic level, we found the departmental analysis to be the most straightforward and consistent approach. While the actual funding directed towards jobs, mental health, and youth development programs reflect only a small portion of total departmental spending, the department-level analysis still paints an overall picture of the way cities prioritize spending.

Because each jurisdiction’s budget is structured differently, including but not limited to the capital funds, we did not score or make comparisons on departmental spending between different jurisdictions. However, we did include data on police and corrections spending per capita as a number that could be better compared across jurisdictions.

We used the jurisdictions’ fiscal year 2019 budgets in our analyses. Budgets for ten years ago are fiscal year 2009 actual expenditures, unless otherwise noted.