With quality city services and smart budgeting, WalletHub has ranked the City of Arlington as one of the best-run cities in America.
The American Dream City came in 28th out of the 150 most populated cities in the country on WalletHub's latestbest-run and worst-run cities list. Arlington was the highest ranked city in North Texas and the second highest ranked in Texas. With more than 383,000 residents, Arlington is the 7th largest city in Texas and the 50th largest in the U.S.
In order to determine rankings, WalletHub's analysts compared the cities across six key categories: financial stability, education, health, safety, economy and infrastructure and pollution. Those factors include the city's credit ratings, long-term debt per capita, graduation rates, crime rates, quality of roads and job growth rate.
"We think we have something pretty special here in Arlington. Now, groups like WalletHub and Money Magazine, which ranked Arlington the "Best Big City" in the South, are taking notice too," said Arlington Marketing and Communications Manager Jay Warren. "This outside validation sends a message to our residents that their city government is working hard on their behalf and spending their taxpayer dollars wisely."
The site also scored municipalities on quality of city services and arrived at a "Score per Dollar Spent" index by dividing those scores by each city's total budget per capita.
"Leaders must carefully consider which services are most essential, which agencies' budgets to cut or boost, whether and how high to raise taxes, among other important decisions that affect the daily lives of city dwellers. How do we measure the effectiveness of local leadership? One way is by determining a city's operating efficiency," the WalletHub article states. "In other words, we can learn how well city officials manage and spend public funds by comparing the quality of services residents receive against the city's total budget."
The City of Arlington, which prepares its annual operating budget using sound fiscal principles and policies, provided tax relief for residents and businesses by reduced the property tax rate this year.
"Arlington is able to reinvest in priority city services while still reducing the property tax rate because we provide an elevated level of service at the lowest cost possible," Warren said. "We are continuously looking for new ways to innovate, to save, and to provide the highest value to our residents."
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