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Truth In Accounting’s Financial State of the
Cities report out Tuesday looked at the largest 75 cities across
the United States and found Chicago’s finances were the second
worst.
TIA founder Sheila Weinberg said federal COVID-19 dollars to the
tune of $1.9 billion for Chicago didn’t reverse the trend.
“They increased the debt by $2.3 billion, so they’re just
continuing a downward spiral of debt,” Weinberg told The Center
Square.
The burden per taxpayer in Chicago is $43,100.
That's the amount every taxpayer in the city would owe to pay
off Chicago's public debt. Only New York City’s $71,400 per
taxpayer is higher.
“Chicago’s numbers in their financial statements does not
include entities like their school district, so that’s
additional money that taxpayers owe,” Weinberg said.
She expects a forthcoming report highlighting all taxpayer costs
in Chicago will put The Windy City at the bottom of the pack,
even further down than New York City.
Despite getting $500 million in COVID-19 relief from taxpayers,
the city of St. Louis was eleventh worst with $17,500 of debt
per taxpayer.
Weinberg said every taxpayer, whether they live in Chicago or
St. Louis or elsewhere, should be concerned.
“The pandemic proved something that we were nervous about at
Truth In Accounting that when these governments get into
trouble, guess who they go to, friendly Uncle Sam,” Weinberg
said.
But not all cities fared poorly. The top 13 largest cities show
taxpayer surpluses.
“The ‘Sunshine Cities’ have a tendency to balance their budget a
little better,” Weinberg said. “They don’t incur as much pension
and retiree health-care debt. Some of them don’t even have
retiree health care debt.”
More information can be found at TruthInAccounting.org.
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