“… In order to appear to balance budgets, TIA notes, elected officials 'have not included the true costs of the government in their budget calculations and have pushed costs onto future taxpayers.' … No cities received an 'A' grade. Twelve cities received a 'B;' 24, including the Twin Cities, received a 'C;' 31 a 'D;' and eight failed.”

A new report on the financial condition of the 75 most populous cities ranks Detroit no. 49 in the nation for fiscal health.

By the end of Fiscal Year 2017, 63 large cities did not have enough money to pay all of their bills, the report states, meaning debts outweigh revenue.

“While I cannot vouch for the numbers, they seem correct. What happened you ask? They bought your votes, they were believed and no one complained until it was too late, which is now!”

St. Louis is already more than $1.6 billion in debt, according to the nonprofit government finance watchdog Truth in Accounting.

“I’ve been telling our clients for a few years now that we expect a significant awakening to the risks of investing in states with high tax burdens. States will increasingly be competing with other states. We’re already seeing investment dollars (and jobs) leaving high tax states and moving to low tax states. We think this is only the tip of the iceberg.”

Because of that dismal outlook, Truth in Accounting awarded a grade of "F" to Chicago's handling of its finances. It blamed "Chicago's elected officials" for making "repeated financial decisions that have left the city" with that burden

This lack of transparency has an obvious motive: career politicians want voters to re-elect them based on false claims that the city’s budgets are balanced or at least improving.

Radio interview of Sheila Weinberg re: Truth in Accounting’s recent Financial State of the Cities report.

“… At the time, I couldn’t understand why vendors kept doing business with Illinois. In some of the cases, I understood that the vendors did not have much choice: Illinois was their only “customer”. But I couldn’t see how these businesses, especially the ones where Illinois was the sole customer, kept going. I didn’t know about Mr. Hynes’s company, though I should have guessed something like that existed. … Now, let’s be fair: 13% per annum interest rate ain’t Mafia-level rates. But then, the Mafia assumed that sometimes they wouldn’t get paid.” 

Truth in Accounting (TIA) believes the first step is better budgeting and accounting,' TIA's founder and CEO, Sheila Weinberg, said.

“Stockton’s finances continue to remain at the top of the heap, according to the latest report from a national nonprofit organization that researches financial practices. … Matt Paulin, Stockton’s chief financial officer, said despite the four-spot drop, the city was just happy to be in the black on Truth in Accounting’s list. 'We’re still right up there with the highest letter grade,' he said.” 

includes material from our latest Financial State of the Cities report as well as Truth in Accounting’s “State Data Lab” website, also includes “… What a miserable report. The most shocking thing is not how bad the worst cities are, but rather some cities in California actually appear to be solvent.”