Tyche Insights - User contributions [en]

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T18:31:31Z

Sage352: Added pic of downtown Gainesville

[[File:Downtown Gainesville, FL.jpg|none|thumb|600x600px|Downtown Gainesville, FL]]

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the [[wikipedia:Gainesville,_Florida|City of Gainesville]]'s finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/budget-amp-finance/documents/fy2024-acfr-final-city-of-gainesville.pdf This is an example] of Gainesville's Audited Financial Statement for 2024.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Gainesville can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing online here].

== Gainesville's Government Activities versus Business-type Activities ==
We had a decision to make when creating a Finance Decoder for our City - what should we measure? We wanted to measure Gainesville's "Governmental Activities" which includes our public safety, human services, recreation and other departments, and includes our debt as well. Gainesville also has "Business-Type Activities" which includes our Gainesville Regional Utility, gas, water, wastewater, Ironwood golf course and regional transportation system.

Gainesville's governmental activities represent over $200 million of revenue in 2024, while business-type activities represent over $530 million in revenue. We could build out our Finance Decoder for both governmental activities AND business-like activities, or built it out solely for governmental activities. In this first pass we decided to create a Finance Decoder for just the governmental activities to understand our fiscal position on the core elements of our City government. We also didn't know if the business-like activities and their goodness or badness would overwhelm the governmental activities picture. In the future we may create a Finance Decoder that covers both categories of activities.

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
Other articles that use the Strong Towns Finance Decoder talk about GASB and how the city or county reflected this important change in accounting practice in the 2010s. [[SaratogaSprings, New York Financial State#GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018|This is an example]] of how Saratoga Springs reflected this accounting change. We are only studying the years 2019-2024 for Gainesville and the GASB 75 accounting change took place prior to these years.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NFP.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Financial Position]]

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

==== Our view: ====
Our financial position for our core governmental activities is very strong. We reviewed the Finance Decoders for other cities and it is rare to find other governments with positive Net Positions.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL FATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

==== Our view: ====
Recent betterment of our ratio is driven by a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024, with our liabilities decreasing by $112 million ($503m to $391m).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL TATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

==== Our view: ====
Similar to the ratio above where a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024 is driving the performance of this metric, additionally our Total Assets have grown by 10% between 2022 and 2024 ($610 to $674 million).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NDTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px]]

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

==== Our view: ====
Our Net Debt to Total Revenues metric has dramatically improved. Our Net Financial Position - which was $-150 million in 2022 is now slightly positive ($3 million) and that is the key component of this metric.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL ITR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Interest to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

'''Our view:'''

Our interest payments on our debt as a percentage of revenue are reasonable. We want to make sure this metric does not creep back above 7 or 8%.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NBVCTCA.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Book Value to Cost of Tangible Assets]]

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

==== '''Our view:''' ====
If there is any concerning metric it is this one. Other high performing cities that are managing and maintaining their infrastructure at the highest levels will have ratios around and above 65-70%.

=== Results - Government Transfers to Total Revenue ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL GTTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Government Transfers to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

==== Our view: ====
In 2024 our City received nearly $24 million in Federal and State grants for operating and capital projects, down by $8 million from the prior year.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Gainesville's Audited Financial statements from 2019 through 2024. This gives us 6 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Government-Pages/Government/Departments/Financial-Services/Annual-Comprehensive-Financial-Report City’s website].

As noted in the introduction, we decide to create a Finance Decoder for the governmental activities, and did not include the business-like activities.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing available here]. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. Using the 2024 audited financial statement as a guide, the individual data elements can be found on the following pages (pdf pages, not document pages), using the "Governmental Activities FY24" columns:

* Page 25 - Current assets, capital assets, deferred outflows, total liabilities, deferred inflows
* Page 26 - Program revenue, interest on long term debt
* Page 83 - "Note 8 - Capital Assets" - assets not being depreciated, assets being depreciated, Total capital assets

For next steps, there are a few:

# Create a Finance Decoder that combines governmental and business-like activities
# Extend the years for which we have data back to 2015 or 2016
# Review the State of Florida's systems for benchmarking local governments and identify if there are additional metrics that we can use to test our City. The starting information is on the [https://www.flauditor.gov/local%20govt/fca_instructions.html Florida Auditor's website].

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

File:Downtown Gainesville, FL.jpg

2025-12-03T18:30:49Z

Sage352:

Downtown Gainesville, FL - used under CC-SA license with credit to reedberkowitz

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T18:28:04Z

Sage352: added a link to the Gainesville FL wikipeida page

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the [[wikipedia:Gainesville,_Florida|City of Gainesville]]'s finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/budget-amp-finance/documents/fy2024-acfr-final-city-of-gainesville.pdf This is an example] of Gainesville's Audited Financial Statement for 2024.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Gainesville can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing online here].

== Gainesville's Government Activities versus Business-type Activities ==
We had a decision to make when creating a Finance Decoder for our City - what should we measure? We wanted to measure Gainesville's "Governmental Activities" which includes our public safety, human services, recreation and other departments, and includes our debt as well. Gainesville also has "Business-Type Activities" which includes our Gainesville Regional Utility, gas, water, wastewater, Ironwood golf course and regional transportation system.

Gainesville's governmental activities represent over $200 million of revenue in 2024, while business-type activities represent over $530 million in revenue. We could build out our Finance Decoder for both governmental activities AND business-like activities, or built it out solely for governmental activities. In this first pass we decided to create a Finance Decoder for just the governmental activities to understand our fiscal position on the core elements of our City government. We also didn't know if the business-like activities and their goodness or badness would overwhelm the governmental activities picture. In the future we may create a Finance Decoder that covers both categories of activities.

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
Other articles that use the Strong Towns Finance Decoder talk about GASB and how the city or county reflected this important change in accounting practice in the 2010s. [[SaratogaSprings, New York Financial State#GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018|This is an example]] of how Saratoga Springs reflected this accounting change. We are only studying the years 2019-2024 for Gainesville and the GASB 75 accounting change took place prior to these years.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NFP.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Financial Position]]

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

==== Our view: ====
Our financial position for our core governmental activities is very strong. We reviewed the Finance Decoders for other cities and it is rare to find other governments with positive Net Positions.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL FATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

==== Our view: ====
Recent betterment of our ratio is driven by a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024, with our liabilities decreasing by $112 million ($503m to $391m).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL TATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

==== Our view: ====
Similar to the ratio above where a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024 is driving the performance of this metric, additionally our Total Assets have grown by 10% between 2022 and 2024 ($610 to $674 million).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NDTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px]]

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

==== Our view: ====
Our Net Debt to Total Revenues metric has dramatically improved. Our Net Financial Position - which was $-150 million in 2022 is now slightly positive ($3 million) and that is the key component of this metric.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL ITR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Interest to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

'''Our view:'''

Our interest payments on our debt as a percentage of revenue are reasonable. We want to make sure this metric does not creep back above 7 or 8%.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NBVCTCA.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Book Value to Cost of Tangible Assets]]

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

==== '''Our view:''' ====
If there is any concerning metric it is this one. Other high performing cities that are managing and maintaining their infrastructure at the highest levels will have ratios around and above 65-70%.

=== Results - Government Transfers to Total Revenue ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL GTTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Government Transfers to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

==== Our view: ====
In 2024 our City received nearly $24 million in Federal and State grants for operating and capital projects, down by $8 million from the prior year.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Gainesville's Audited Financial statements from 2019 through 2024. This gives us 6 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Government-Pages/Government/Departments/Financial-Services/Annual-Comprehensive-Financial-Report City’s website].

As noted in the introduction, we decide to create a Finance Decoder for the governmental activities, and did not include the business-like activities.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing available here]. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. Using the 2024 audited financial statement as a guide, the individual data elements can be found on the following pages (pdf pages, not document pages), using the "Governmental Activities FY24" columns:

* Page 25 - Current assets, capital assets, deferred outflows, total liabilities, deferred inflows
* Page 26 - Program revenue, interest on long term debt
* Page 83 - "Note 8 - Capital Assets" - assets not being depreciated, assets being depreciated, Total capital assets

For next steps, there are a few:

# Create a Finance Decoder that combines governmental and business-like activities
# Extend the years for which we have data back to 2015 or 2016
# Review the State of Florida's systems for benchmarking local governments and identify if there are additional metrics that we can use to test our City. The starting information is on the [https://www.flauditor.gov/local%20govt/fca_instructions.html Florida Auditor's website].

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T18:27:01Z

Sage352: added in next steps under "Process"

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Gainesville's finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/budget-amp-finance/documents/fy2024-acfr-final-city-of-gainesville.pdf This is an example] of Gainesville's Audited Financial Statement for 2024.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Gainesville can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing online here].

== Gainesville's Government Activities versus Business-type Activities ==
We had a decision to make when creating a Finance Decoder for our City - what should we measure? We wanted to measure Gainesville's "Governmental Activities" which includes our public safety, human services, recreation and other departments, and includes our debt as well. Gainesville also has "Business-Type Activities" which includes our Gainesville Regional Utility, gas, water, wastewater, Ironwood golf course and regional transportation system.

Gainesville's governmental activities represent over $200 million of revenue in 2024, while business-type activities represent over $530 million in revenue. We could build out our Finance Decoder for both governmental activities AND business-like activities, or built it out solely for governmental activities. In this first pass we decided to create a Finance Decoder for just the governmental activities to understand our fiscal position on the core elements of our City government. We also didn't know if the business-like activities and their goodness or badness would overwhelm the governmental activities picture. In the future we may create a Finance Decoder that covers both categories of activities.

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
Other articles that use the Strong Towns Finance Decoder talk about GASB and how the city or county reflected this important change in accounting practice in the 2010s. [[SaratogaSprings, New York Financial State#GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018|This is an example]] of how Saratoga Springs reflected this accounting change. We are only studying the years 2019-2024 for Gainesville and the GASB 75 accounting change took place prior to these years.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NFP.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Financial Position]]

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

==== Our view: ====
Our financial position for our core governmental activities is very strong. We reviewed the Finance Decoders for other cities and it is rare to find other governments with positive Net Positions.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL FATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

==== Our view: ====
Recent betterment of our ratio is driven by a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024, with our liabilities decreasing by $112 million ($503m to $391m).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL TATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

==== Our view: ====
Similar to the ratio above where a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024 is driving the performance of this metric, additionally our Total Assets have grown by 10% between 2022 and 2024 ($610 to $674 million).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NDTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px]]

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

==== Our view: ====
Our Net Debt to Total Revenues metric has dramatically improved. Our Net Financial Position - which was $-150 million in 2022 is now slightly positive ($3 million) and that is the key component of this metric.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL ITR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Interest to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

'''Our view:'''

Our interest payments on our debt as a percentage of revenue are reasonable. We want to make sure this metric does not creep back above 7 or 8%.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NBVCTCA.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Book Value to Cost of Tangible Assets]]

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

==== '''Our view:''' ====
If there is any concerning metric it is this one. Other high performing cities that are managing and maintaining their infrastructure at the highest levels will have ratios around and above 65-70%.

=== Results - Government Transfers to Total Revenue ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL GTTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Government Transfers to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

==== Our view: ====
In 2024 our City received nearly $24 million in Federal and State grants for operating and capital projects, down by $8 million from the prior year.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Gainesville's Audited Financial statements from 2019 through 2024. This gives us 6 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Government-Pages/Government/Departments/Financial-Services/Annual-Comprehensive-Financial-Report City’s website].

As noted in the introduction, we decide to create a Finance Decoder for the governmental activities, and did not include the business-like activities.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing available here]. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. Using the 2024 audited financial statement as a guide, the individual data elements can be found on the following pages (pdf pages, not document pages), using the "Governmental Activities FY24" columns:

* Page 25 - Current assets, capital assets, deferred outflows, total liabilities, deferred inflows
* Page 26 - Program revenue, interest on long term debt
* Page 83 - "Note 8 - Capital Assets" - assets not being depreciated, assets being depreciated, Total capital assets

For next steps, there are a few:

# Create a Finance Decoder that combines governmental and business-like activities
# Extend the years for which we have data back to 2015 or 2016
# Review the State of Florida's systems for benchmarking local governments and identify if there are additional metrics that we can use to test our City. The starting information is on the [https://www.flauditor.gov/local%20govt/fca_instructions.html Florida Auditor's website].

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T17:01:22Z

Sage352:

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Gainesville's finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/budget-amp-finance/documents/fy2024-acfr-final-city-of-gainesville.pdf This is an example] of Gainesville's Audited Financial Statement for 2024.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Gainesville can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing online here].

== Gainesville's Government Activities versus Business-type Activities ==
We had a decision to make when creating a Finance Decoder for our City - what should we measure? We wanted to measure Gainesville's "Governmental Activities" which includes our public safety, human services, recreation and other departments, and includes our debt as well. Gainesville also has "Business-Type Activities" which includes our Gainesville Regional Utility, gas, water, wastewater, Ironwood golf course and regional transportation system.

Gainesville's governmental activities represent over $200 million of revenue in 2024, while business-type activities represent over $530 million in revenue. We could build out our Finance Decoder for both governmental activities AND business-like activities, or built it out solely for governmental activities. In this first pass we decided to create a Finance Decoder for just the governmental activities to understand our fiscal position on the core elements of our City government. We also didn't know if the business-like activities and their goodness or badness would overwhelm the governmental activities picture. In the future we may create a Finance Decoder that covers both categories of activities.

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
Other articles that use the Strong Towns Finance Decoder talk about GASB and how the city or county reflected this important change in accounting practice in the 2010s. [[SaratogaSprings, New York Financial State#GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018|This is an example]] of how Saratoga Springs reflected this accounting change. We are only studying the years 2019-2024 for Gainesville and the GASB 75 accounting change took place prior to these years.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NFP.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Financial Position]]

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

==== Our view: ====
Our financial position for our core governmental activities is very strong. We reviewed the Finance Decoders for other cities and it is rare to find other governments with positive Net Positions.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL FATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

==== Our view: ====
Recent betterment of our ratio is driven by a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024, with our liabilities decreasing by $112 million ($503m to $391m).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL TATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

==== Our view: ====
Similar to the ratio above where a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024 is driving the performance of this metric, additionally our Total Assets have grown by 10% between 2022 and 2024 ($610 to $674 million).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NDTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px]]

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

==== Our view: ====
Our Net Debt to Total Revenues metric has dramatically improved. Our Net Financial Position - which was $-150 million in 2022 is now slightly positive ($3 million) and that is the key component of this metric.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL ITR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Interest to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

'''Our view:'''

Our interest payments on our debt as a percentage of revenue are reasonable. We want to make sure this metric does not creep back above 7 or 8%.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NBVCTCA.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Book Value to Cost of Tangible Assets]]

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

==== '''Our view:''' ====
If there is any concerning metric it is this one. Other high performing cities that are managing and maintaining their infrastructure at the highest levels will have ratios around and above 65-70%.

=== Results - Government Transfers to Total Revenue ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL GTTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Government Transfers to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

==== Our view: ====
In 2024 our City received nearly $24 million in Federal and State grants for operating and capital projects, down by $8 million from the prior year.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Gainesville's Audited Financial statements from 2019 through 2024. This gives us 6 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Government-Pages/Government/Departments/Financial-Services/Annual-Comprehensive-Financial-Report City’s website].

As noted in the introduction, we decide to create a Finance Decoder for the governmental activities, and did not include the business-like activities.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing available here]. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. Using the 2024 audited financial statement as a guide, the individual data elements can be found on the following pages (pdf pages, not document pages), using the "Governmental Activities FY24" columns:

* Page 25 - Current assets, capital assets, deferred outflows, total liabilities, deferred inflows
* Page 26 - Program revenue, interest on long term debt
* Page 83 - "Note 8 - Capital Assets" - assets not being depreciated, assets being depreciated, Total capital assets

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T17:00:25Z

Sage352:

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Saratoga Spring's finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/budget-amp-finance/documents/fy2024-acfr-final-city-of-gainesville.pdf This is an example] of Gainesville's Audited Financial Statement for 2024.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Gainesville can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing online here].

== Gainesville's Government Activities versus Business-type Activities ==
We had a decision to make when creating a Finance Decoder for our City - what should we measure? We wanted to measure Gainesville's "Governmental Activities" which includes our public safety, human services, recreation and other departments, and includes our debt as well. Gainesville also has "Business-Type Activities" which includes our Gainesville Regional Utility, gas, water, wastewater, Ironwood golf course and regional transportation system.

Gainesville's governmental activities represent over $200 million of revenue in 2024, while business-type activities represent over $530 million in revenue. We could build out our Finance Decoder for both governmental activities AND business-like activities, or built it out solely for governmental activities. In this first pass we decided to create a Finance Decoder for just the governmental activities to understand our fiscal position on the core elements of our City government. We also didn't know if the business-like activities and their goodness or badness would overwhelm the governmental activities picture. In the future we may create a Finance Decoder that covers both categories of activities.

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
Other articles that use the Strong Towns Finance Decoder talk about GASB and how the city or county reflected this important change in accounting practice in the 2010s. [[SaratogaSprings, New York Financial State#GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018|This is an example]] of how Saratoga Springs reflected this accounting change. We are only studying the years 2019-2024 for Gainesville and the GASB 75 accounting change took place prior to these years.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NFP.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Financial Position]]

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

==== Our view: ====
Our financial position for our core governmental activities is very strong. We reviewed the Finance Decoders for other cities and it is rare to find other governments with positive Net Positions.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL FATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

==== Our view: ====
Recent betterment of our ratio is driven by a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024, with our liabilities decreasing by $112 million ($503m to $391m).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL TATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

==== Our view: ====
Similar to the ratio above where a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024 is driving the performance of this metric, additionally our Total Assets have grown by 10% between 2022 and 2024 ($610 to $674 million).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NDTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px]]

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

==== Our view: ====
Our Net Debt to Total Revenues metric has dramatically improved. Our Net Financial Position - which was $-150 million in 2022 is now slightly positive ($3 million) and that is the key component of this metric.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL ITR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Interest to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

'''Our view:'''

Our interest payments on our debt as a percentage of revenue are reasonable. We want to make sure this metric does not creep back above 7 or 8%.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NBVCTCA.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Book Value to Cost of Tangible Assets]]

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

==== '''Our view:''' ====
If there is any concerning metric it is this one. Other high performing cities that are managing and maintaining their infrastructure at the highest levels will have ratios around and above 65-70%.

=== Results - Government Transfers to Total Revenue ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL GTTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Government Transfers to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

==== Our view: ====
In 2024 our City received nearly $24 million in Federal and State grants for operating and capital projects, down by $8 million from the prior year.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Gainesville's Audited Financial statements from 2019 through 2024. This gives us 6 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Government-Pages/Government/Departments/Financial-Services/Annual-Comprehensive-Financial-Report City’s website].

As noted in the introduction, we decide to create a Finance Decoder for the governmental activities, and did not include the business-like activities.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing available here]. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. Using the 2024 audited financial statement as a guide, the individual data elements can be found on the following pages (pdf pages, not document pages), using the "Governmental Activities FY24" columns:

* Page 25 - Current assets, capital assets, deferred outflows, total liabilities, deferred inflows
* Page 26 - Program revenue, interest on long term debt
* Page 83 - "Note 8 - Capital Assets" - assets not being depreciated, assets being depreciated, Total capital assets

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T16:56:15Z

Sage352:

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Saratoga Spring's finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/budget-amp-finance/documents/fy2024-acfr-final-city-of-gainesville.pdf This is an example] of Gainesville's Audited Financial Statement for 2024.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Gainesville can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing online here].

== Gainesville's Government Activities versus Business-type Activities ==
We had a decision to make when creating a Finance Decoder for our City - what should we measure? We wanted to measure Gainesville's "Governmental Activities" which includes our public safety, human services, recreation and other departments, and includes our debt as well. Gainesville also has "Business-Type Activities" which includes our Gainesville Regional Utility, gas, water, wastewater, Ironwood golf course and regional transportation system.

Gainesville's governmental activities represent over $200 million of revenue in 2024, while business-type activities represent over $530 million in revenue. We could build out our Finance Decoder for both governmental activities AND business-like activities, or built it out solely for governmental activities. In this first pass we decided to create a Finance Decoder for just the governmental activities to understand our fiscal position on the core elements of our City government. We also didn't know if the business-like activities and their goodness or badness would overwhelm the governmental activities picture. In the future we may create a Finance Decoder that covers both categories of activities.

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
Other articles that use the Strong Towns Finance Decoder talk about GASB and how the city or county reflected this important change in accounting practice in the 2010s. [[SaratogaSprings, New York Financial State#GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018|This is an example]] of how Saratoga Springs reflected this accounting change. We are only studying the years 2019-2024 for Gainesville and the GASB 75 accounting change took place prior to these years.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NFP.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Financial Position]]

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

==== Our view: ====
Our financial position for our core governmental activities is very strong. We reviewed the Finance Decoders for other cities and it is rare to find other governments with positive Net Positions.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL FATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

==== Our view: ====
Recent betterment of our ratio is driven by a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024, with our liabilities decreasing by $112 million ($503m to $391m).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL TATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

==== Our view: ====
Similar to the ratio above where a shrinking of our Total liabilities between 2022 and 2024 is driving the performance of this metric, additionally our Total Assets have grown by 10% between 2022 and 2024 ($610 to $674 million).

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NDTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px]]

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

==== Our view: ====
Our Net Debt to Total Revenues metric has dramatically improved. Our Net Financial Position - which was $-150 million in 2022 is now slightly positive ($3 million) and that is the key component of this metric.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL ITR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Interest to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

'''Our view:'''

Our interest payments on our debt as a percentage of revenue are reasonable. We want to make sure this metric does not creep back above 7 or 8%.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NBVCTCA.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Book Value to Cost of Tangible Assets]]

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

==== '''Our view:''' ====
If there is any concerning metric it is this one. Other high performing cities that are managing and maintaining their infrastructure at the highest levels will have ratios around and above 65-70%.

=== Results - Government Transfers to Total Revenue ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL GTTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Government Transfers to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

==== Our view: ====
In 2024 our City received nearly $24 million in Federal and State grants for operating and capital projects, down by $8 million from the prior year.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Gainesville's Audited Financial statements from 2019 through 2024. This gives us 6 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Government-Pages/Government/Departments/Financial-Services/Annual-Comprehensive-Financial-Report City’s website].

As noted in the introduction, we decide to create a Finance Decoder for the governmental activities, and did not include the business-like activities.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing available here]. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. There are 12 data points that we gathered. We will use the 2021 Statement as an example of where, specifically, we found the data.

Recall that we are only focused on the financial data related to the “Primary Government” and not the financial data of the “Component Units”, e.g. Albany IDA. Below we will also refer to the PDF page numbers and not the document page number.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T16:40:55Z

Sage352: added in images + created commentary on why we chose to solely study the Governmental Activities

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Saratoga Spring's finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/budget-amp-finance/documents/fy2024-acfr-final-city-of-gainesville.pdf This is an example] of Gainesville's Audited Financial Statement for 2024.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Gainesville can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing online here].

== Gainesville's Government Activities versus Business-type Activities ==
We had a decision to make when creating a Finance Decoder for our City - what should we measure? We wanted to measure Gainesville's "Governmental Activities" which includes our public safety, human services, recreation and other departments, and includes our debt as well. Gainesville also has "Business-Type Activities" which includes our Gainesville Regional Utility, gas, water, wastewater, Ironwood golf course and regional transportation system.

Gainesville's governmental activities represent over $200 million of revenue in 2024, while business-type activities represent over $530 million in revenue. We could build out our Finance Decoder for both governmental activities AND business-like activities, or built it out solely for governmental activities. In this first pass we decided to create a Finance Decoder for just the governmental activities to understand our fiscal position on the core elements of our City government. We also didn't know if the business-like activities and their goodness or badness would overwhelm the governmental activities picture. In the future we may create a Finance Decoder that covers both categories of activities.

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
Other articles that use the Strong Towns Finance Decoder talk about GASB and how the city or county reflected this important change in accounting practice in the 2010s. [[SaratogaSprings, New York Financial State#GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018|This is an example]] of how Saratoga Springs reflected this accounting change. We are only studying the years 2019-2024 for Gainesville and the GASB 75 accounting change took place prior to these years.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NFP.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Financial Position]]

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

==== Our view: ====
Our financial position for our core governmental activities is very strong. We reviewed the Finance Decoders for other cities and it is rare to find other governments with positive Net Positions.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL FATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

==== Our view: ====

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL TATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NDTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px]]

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL ITR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Interest to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NBVCTCA.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Book Value to Cost of Tangible Assets]]

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

=== Results - Government Transfers to Total Revenue ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL GTTR.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Government Transfers to Total Revenue]]

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Gainesville's Audited Financial statements from 2019 through 2024. This gives us 6 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Government-Pages/Government/Departments/Financial-Services/Annual-Comprehensive-Financial-Report City’s website].

Importantly the audited statements discuss what are generally thought of as the City’s finances and the “Component Units” of the city which include the Albany Parking Authority, the Albany Water Board, and the Albany Industrial Development Agency. For our Strong Towns Finance Decoder we only used data for what is termed the “Primary Government” in the audited statements and we did not include data for the Component Units.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder available here. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. There are 12 data points that we gathered. We will use the 2021 Statement as an example of where, specifically, we found the data.

Recall that we are only focused on the financial data related to the “Primary Government” and not the financial data of the “Component Units”, e.g. Albany IDA. Below we will also refer to the PDF page numbers and not the document page number.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

File:GainesvilleFL GTTR.png

2025-12-03T16:28:38Z

Sage352:

Gainesville, Florida Government Transfers to Total Revenue

File:GainesvilleFL NBVCTCA.png

2025-12-03T16:27:49Z

Sage352:

Gainesville, Florida Value to Cost of Assets

File:GainesvilleFL ITR.png

2025-12-03T16:27:07Z

Sage352:

Gainesville, Florida Interest to Total Revenue

File:GainesvilleFL NDTR.png

2025-12-03T16:26:32Z

Sage352:

Gainesville, Florida Net Debt to Total Revenue

File:GainesvilleFL TATL.png

2025-12-03T16:25:50Z

Sage352:

Gainesville, Florida Total Assets to Total Liabilities

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T16:25:15Z

Sage352: starting to add in the 7 images

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Saratoga Spring's finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/budget-amp-finance/documents/fy2024-acfr-final-city-of-gainesville.pdf This is an example] of Gainesville's Audited Financial Statement for 2024.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Gainesville can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing online here].

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
Other articles that use the Strong Towns Finance Decoder talk about GASB and how the city or county reflected this important change in accounting practice in the 2010s. [[SaratogaSprings, New York Financial State#GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018|This is an example]] of how Saratoga Springs reflected this accounting change. We are only studying the years 2019-2024 for Gainesville and the GASB 75 accounting change took place prior to these years.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL NFP.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Net Financial Position]]

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===
[[File:GainesvilleFL FATL.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities]]

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

=== Results - Govt Transfers to Total revenue ===

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Albany’s Audited Financial statements from 2014 through 2023. This gives us 10 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the City’s archive and the Treasurer’s site. Note that we expect the 2024 audited statement to be available in September or October 2024.

Importantly the audited statements discuss what are generally thought of as the City’s finances and the “Component Units” of the city which include the Albany Parking Authority, the Albany Water Board, and the Albany Industrial Development Agency. For our Strong Towns Finance Decoder we only used data for what is termed the “Primary Government” in the audited statements and we did not include data for the Component Units.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder available here. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. There are 12 data points that we gathered. We will use the 2021 Statement as an example of where, specifically, we found the data.

Recall that we are only focused on the financial data related to the “Primary Government” and not the financial data of the “Component Units”, e.g. Albany IDA. Below we will also refer to the PDF page numbers and not the document page number.

Current Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Total Assets - Capital Assets, Net.
Capital Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Capital Assets, Net.
Deferred Outflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred outflows of resources.
Liabilities - page 21. Primary Government column. Total liabilities.
Deferred Inflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred inflows of resources.
Total Revenues - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Total revenues.
Operating Grants & Contributions - page 22. Operating Grants and Contributions column. Total governmental activities.
Capital Grants & Contributions - page 22. Capital Grants and Contributions. Total governmental activities.
Interest Charges - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Interest (under Debt service:)
Net Book TCA - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Total capital assets, net.
Govt assets not depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets not being depreciated:
Govt assets being depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets being depreciated:
A note on Revenue, point #6 above. We are using Total Revenue for Total Government Funds which includes:

General Revenue (property tax, sales tax and intergovernmental revenue)
Special Revenue (we believe that this is used to account for Workforce Investment Act and various community services programs)
Capital Projects (“Resources used to construct or acquire capital improvements”)
Other Governmental Funds (we believe that this is revenue from the Albany Community Development Agency)
The point behind looking at all revenue streams is that the Finance Decoder presents three charts - “Net Debt to Total Revenues”, “Interest to Total Revenues” and “Government Transfer to Total Revenue” which are best expressed using all revenue streams as the denominator.

Note that the Finance Decoder can also track other dimensions that may be found in an Audited Statement. These are four additional metrics that we could not find and/or don’t apply to the way that the City of Albany conducts business:

Govt other assets
Bus assets not depreciated, Bus assets being depreciated, Bus other assets - Note “The City’s activities are all classified as governmental activities”

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

File:GainesvilleFL FATL.png

2025-12-03T16:24:49Z

Sage352:

Gainesville, Florida Financial Assets to Total Liabilities

File:GainesvilleFL NFP.png

2025-12-03T16:23:58Z

Sage352:

Gainesville, Florida Net Financial Position

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T15:25:55Z

Sage352: added in the GASB 75 reference (I am saying that this doesn't apply for my data story)

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Saratoga Spring's finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? [https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/budget-amp-finance/documents/fy2024-acfr-final-city-of-gainesville.pdf This is an example] of Gainesville's Audited Financial Statement for 2024.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Gainesville can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzVSTEul_mdvTN4PSuIU3S5RG46C74qD8Npv_dvTxPs/edit?usp=sharing online here].

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
Other articles that use the Strong Towns Finance Decoder talk about GASB and how the city or county reflected this important change in accounting practice in the 2010s. [[SaratogaSprings, New York Financial State#GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018|This is an example]] of how Saratoga Springs reflected this accounting change. We are only studying the years 2019-2024 for Gainesville and the GASB 75 accounting change took place prior to these years.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

=== Results - Govt Transfers to Total revenue ===

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Albany’s Audited Financial statements from 2014 through 2023. This gives us 10 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the City’s archive and the Treasurer’s site. Note that we expect the 2024 audited statement to be available in September or October 2024.

Importantly the audited statements discuss what are generally thought of as the City’s finances and the “Component Units” of the city which include the Albany Parking Authority, the Albany Water Board, and the Albany Industrial Development Agency. For our Strong Towns Finance Decoder we only used data for what is termed the “Primary Government” in the audited statements and we did not include data for the Component Units.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder available here. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. There are 12 data points that we gathered. We will use the 2021 Statement as an example of where, specifically, we found the data.

Recall that we are only focused on the financial data related to the “Primary Government” and not the financial data of the “Component Units”, e.g. Albany IDA. Below we will also refer to the PDF page numbers and not the document page number.

Current Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Total Assets - Capital Assets, Net.
Capital Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Capital Assets, Net.
Deferred Outflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred outflows of resources.
Liabilities - page 21. Primary Government column. Total liabilities.
Deferred Inflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred inflows of resources.
Total Revenues - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Total revenues.
Operating Grants & Contributions - page 22. Operating Grants and Contributions column. Total governmental activities.
Capital Grants & Contributions - page 22. Capital Grants and Contributions. Total governmental activities.
Interest Charges - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Interest (under Debt service:)
Net Book TCA - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Total capital assets, net.
Govt assets not depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets not being depreciated:
Govt assets being depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets being depreciated:
A note on Revenue, point #6 above. We are using Total Revenue for Total Government Funds which includes:

General Revenue (property tax, sales tax and intergovernmental revenue)
Special Revenue (we believe that this is used to account for Workforce Investment Act and various community services programs)
Capital Projects (“Resources used to construct or acquire capital improvements”)
Other Governmental Funds (we believe that this is revenue from the Albany Community Development Agency)
The point behind looking at all revenue streams is that the Finance Decoder presents three charts - “Net Debt to Total Revenues”, “Interest to Total Revenues” and “Government Transfer to Total Revenue” which are best expressed using all revenue streams as the denominator.

Note that the Finance Decoder can also track other dimensions that may be found in an Audited Statement. These are four additional metrics that we could not find and/or don’t apply to the way that the City of Albany conducts business:

Govt other assets
Bus assets not depreciated, Bus assets being depreciated, Bus other assets - Note “The City’s activities are all classified as governmental activities”

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T15:21:06Z

Sage352: copied in Saratoga Springs content at beginning of article which is better context than the albany text

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Saratoga Spring's finances over time using the Strong Towns Finance Decoder.

Strong Towns has a vision - “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.”

The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? This is an example from the City of Saratoga Springs' Audited Financial Statement for 2023.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

The Google Sheet that shows the full Finance Decoder for Saratoga can be found online here.

== GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018 ==
An important note when looking at Albany’s finances - the biggest surprise when inputting audited financial information was what happened in 2018’s financial statements and related data. The Liabilities line jumped from $359 million in liabilities to $718 million between 2017 and 2018. What happened?

In the auditor’s narrative “Effective January 1, 2018, the City adopted GASB Statement No. 75, Accounting and Financial Reporting for Postemployment Benefits Other Than Pensions (GASB 75)”. GASB is the Governmental Accounting Standards Board; the board recommended a significant change to the accounting of Postemployment Benefits “Postemployment benefits” are employee benefits other than pensions that are received after employment ends, such as medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits. This was a pervasive accounting change that impacted many cities, not just Albany, and yielded lots of questions.

The net impact of GASB 75 is that any chart that uses Liabilities in the formula will show a significant change between 2017 and 2018 with the 2018 showing a more negative presentation. Our point of view is that 2018’s data shows an increased liability that was there all along and that did not surface until the GASB accounting change. This is not an indictment of the City of Albany, this is a reflection that the way of doing things changed for all government entities.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===

==== What it is: ====
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

==== What it tells you: ====
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities ===

==== What it is: ====
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

==== What it tells you: ====
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities ===

==== What it is: ====
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

==== What it tells you: ====
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

==== What the trend shows: ====
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

=== Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues ===

==== What it is: ====
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues ===

==== What it is: ====
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

==== What it tells you: ====
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

==== What the trend shows: ====
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

=== Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets ===

==== What it is: ====
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

==== What it tells you: ====
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

==== What the trend shows: ====
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

=== Results - Govt Transfers to Total revenue ===

==== What it is: ====
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

==== What it tells you: ====
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

==== What the trend shows: ====
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Albany’s Audited Financial statements from 2014 through 2023. This gives us 10 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the City’s archive and the Treasurer’s site. Note that we expect the 2024 audited statement to be available in September or October 2024.

Importantly the audited statements discuss what are generally thought of as the City’s finances and the “Component Units” of the city which include the Albany Parking Authority, the Albany Water Board, and the Albany Industrial Development Agency. For our Strong Towns Finance Decoder we only used data for what is termed the “Primary Government” in the audited statements and we did not include data for the Component Units.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder available here. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. There are 12 data points that we gathered. We will use the 2021 Statement as an example of where, specifically, we found the data.

Recall that we are only focused on the financial data related to the “Primary Government” and not the financial data of the “Component Units”, e.g. Albany IDA. Below we will also refer to the PDF page numbers and not the document page number.

Current Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Total Assets - Capital Assets, Net.
Capital Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Capital Assets, Net.
Deferred Outflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred outflows of resources.
Liabilities - page 21. Primary Government column. Total liabilities.
Deferred Inflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred inflows of resources.
Total Revenues - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Total revenues.
Operating Grants & Contributions - page 22. Operating Grants and Contributions column. Total governmental activities.
Capital Grants & Contributions - page 22. Capital Grants and Contributions. Total governmental activities.
Interest Charges - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Interest (under Debt service:)
Net Book TCA - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Total capital assets, net.
Govt assets not depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets not being depreciated:
Govt assets being depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets being depreciated:
A note on Revenue, point #6 above. We are using Total Revenue for Total Government Funds which includes:

General Revenue (property tax, sales tax and intergovernmental revenue)
Special Revenue (we believe that this is used to account for Workforce Investment Act and various community services programs)
Capital Projects (“Resources used to construct or acquire capital improvements”)
Other Governmental Funds (we believe that this is revenue from the Albany Community Development Agency)
The point behind looking at all revenue streams is that the Finance Decoder presents three charts - “Net Debt to Total Revenues”, “Interest to Total Revenues” and “Government Transfer to Total Revenue” which are best expressed using all revenue streams as the denominator.

Note that the Finance Decoder can also track other dimensions that may be found in an Audited Statement. These are four additional metrics that we could not find and/or don’t apply to the way that the City of Albany conducts business:

Govt other assets
Bus assets not depreciated, Bus assets being depreciated, Bus other assets - Note “The City’s activities are all classified as governmental activities”

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T15:18:46Z

Sage352: more format edits

== The City of Gainesville, Florida and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder ==
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Gainesville's finances over time and we found the Strong Towns Finance Decoder, which we will use in this article.

If you haven’t heard of Strong Towns, we love their vision “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to. Strong Towns has some great journalism and opinion pieces; we like this article as an example of a quality piece that speaks to how we measure America’s infrastructure.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.” The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? This is an example from 2018 of the City of Albany’s Audited Financial Statement that we are drawing data from.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

After reading this article you may want to read an article about Albany's Budgets from 2017 to 2025.

GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018
An important note when looking at Albany’s finances - the biggest surprise when inputting audited financial information was what happened in 2018’s financial statements and related data. The Liabilities line jumped from $359 million in liabilities to $718 million between 2017 and 2018. What happened?

In the auditor’s narrative “Effective January 1, 2018, the City adopted GASB Statement No. 75, Accounting and Financial Reporting for Postemployment Benefits Other Than Pensions (GASB 75)”. GASB is the Governmental Accounting Standards Board; the board recommended a significant change to the accounting of Postemployment Benefits “Postemployment benefits” are employee benefits other than pensions that are received after employment ends, such as medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits. This was a pervasive accounting change that impacted many cities, not just Albany, and yielded lots of questions.

The net impact of GASB 75 is that any chart that uses Liabilities in the formula will show a significant change between 2017 and 2018 with the 2018 showing a more negative presentation. Our point of view is that 2018’s data shows an increased liability that was there all along and that did not surface until the GASB accounting change. This is not an indictment of the City of Albany, this is a reflection that the way of doing things changed for all government entities.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==

=== Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position ===

What it is:

The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

What it tells you:
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

What the trend shows:
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities

What it is:
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

What it tells you:
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

What the trend shows:
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities

What it is:
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

What it tells you:
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

What the trend shows:
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues

What it is:
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

What it tells you:
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

What the trend shows:
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues

What it is:
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

What it tells you:
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

What the trend shows:
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets

What it is:
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

What it tells you:
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

What the trend shows:
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

Results - Govt Transfers to Total revenue

What it is:
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

What it tells you:
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

What the trend shows:
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Albany’s Audited Financial statements from 2014 through 2023. This gives us 10 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the City’s archive and the Treasurer’s site. Note that we expect the 2024 audited statement to be available in September or October 2024.

Importantly the audited statements discuss what are generally thought of as the City’s finances and the “Component Units” of the city which include the Albany Parking Authority, the Albany Water Board, and the Albany Industrial Development Agency. For our Strong Towns Finance Decoder we only used data for what is termed the “Primary Government” in the audited statements and we did not include data for the Component Units.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder available here. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. There are 12 data points that we gathered. We will use the 2021 Statement as an example of where, specifically, we found the data.

Recall that we are only focused on the financial data related to the “Primary Government” and not the financial data of the “Component Units”, e.g. Albany IDA. Below we will also refer to the PDF page numbers and not the document page number.

Current Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Total Assets - Capital Assets, Net.
Capital Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Capital Assets, Net.
Deferred Outflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred outflows of resources.
Liabilities - page 21. Primary Government column. Total liabilities.
Deferred Inflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred inflows of resources.
Total Revenues - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Total revenues.
Operating Grants & Contributions - page 22. Operating Grants and Contributions column. Total governmental activities.
Capital Grants & Contributions - page 22. Capital Grants and Contributions. Total governmental activities.
Interest Charges - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Interest (under Debt service:)
Net Book TCA - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Total capital assets, net.
Govt assets not depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets not being depreciated:
Govt assets being depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets being depreciated:
A note on Revenue, point #6 above. We are using Total Revenue for Total Government Funds which includes:

General Revenue (property tax, sales tax and intergovernmental revenue)
Special Revenue (we believe that this is used to account for Workforce Investment Act and various community services programs)
Capital Projects (“Resources used to construct or acquire capital improvements”)
Other Governmental Funds (we believe that this is revenue from the Albany Community Development Agency)
The point behind looking at all revenue streams is that the Finance Decoder presents three charts - “Net Debt to Total Revenues”, “Interest to Total Revenues” and “Government Transfer to Total Revenue” which are best expressed using all revenue streams as the denominator.

Note that the Finance Decoder can also track other dimensions that may be found in an Audited Statement. These are four additional metrics that we could not find and/or don’t apply to the way that the City of Albany conducts business:

Govt other assets
Bus assets not depreciated, Bus assets being depreciated, Bus other assets - Note “The City’s activities are all classified as governmental activities”

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T15:17:55Z

Sage352: making changes for format and content

The City of Albany and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Albany’s finances over time and we found the Strong Towns Finance Decoder, which we will use in this article.

If you haven’t heard of Strong Towns, we love their vision “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to. Strong Towns has some great journalism and opinion pieces; we like this article as an example of a quality piece that speaks to how we measure America’s infrastructure.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.” The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? This is an example from 2018 of the City of Albany’s Audited Financial Statement that we are drawing data from.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

After reading this article you may want to read an article about Albany's Budgets from 2017 to 2025.

GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018
An important note when looking at Albany’s finances - the biggest surprise when inputting audited financial information was what happened in 2018’s financial statements and related data. The Liabilities line jumped from $359 million in liabilities to $718 million between 2017 and 2018. What happened?

In the auditor’s narrative “Effective January 1, 2018, the City adopted GASB Statement No. 75, Accounting and Financial Reporting for Postemployment Benefits Other Than Pensions (GASB 75)”. GASB is the Governmental Accounting Standards Board; the board recommended a significant change to the accounting of Postemployment Benefits “Postemployment benefits” are employee benefits other than pensions that are received after employment ends, such as medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits. This was a pervasive accounting change that impacted many cities, not just Albany, and yielded lots of questions.

The net impact of GASB 75 is that any chart that uses Liabilities in the formula will show a significant change between 2017 and 2018 with the 2018 showing a more negative presentation. Our point of view is that 2018’s data shows an increased liability that was there all along and that did not surface until the GASB accounting change. This is not an indictment of the City of Albany, this is a reflection that the way of doing things changed for all government entities.

== 7 Charts that explain Gainesville Florida ==
Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position

What it is:
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

What it tells you:
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

What the trend shows:
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities

What it is:
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

What it tells you:
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

What the trend shows:
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities

What it is:
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

What it tells you:
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

What the trend shows:
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues

What it is:
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

What it tells you:
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

What the trend shows:
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues

What it is:
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

What it tells you:
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

What the trend shows:
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets

What it is:
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

What it tells you:
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

What the trend shows:
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

Results - Govt Transfers to Total revenue

What it is:
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

What it tells you:
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

What the trend shows:
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

== Data ==
For this study we used the City of Albany’s Audited Financial statements from 2014 through 2023. This gives us 10 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the City’s archive and the Treasurer’s site. Note that we expect the 2024 audited statement to be available in September or October 2024.

Importantly the audited statements discuss what are generally thought of as the City’s finances and the “Component Units” of the city which include the Albany Parking Authority, the Albany Water Board, and the Albany Industrial Development Agency. For our Strong Towns Finance Decoder we only used data for what is termed the “Primary Government” in the audited statements and we did not include data for the Component Units.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder available here. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

== Process ==
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. There are 12 data points that we gathered. We will use the 2021 Statement as an example of where, specifically, we found the data.

Recall that we are only focused on the financial data related to the “Primary Government” and not the financial data of the “Component Units”, e.g. Albany IDA. Below we will also refer to the PDF page numbers and not the document page number.

Current Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Total Assets - Capital Assets, Net.
Capital Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Capital Assets, Net.
Deferred Outflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred outflows of resources.
Liabilities - page 21. Primary Government column. Total liabilities.
Deferred Inflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred inflows of resources.
Total Revenues - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Total revenues.
Operating Grants & Contributions - page 22. Operating Grants and Contributions column. Total governmental activities.
Capital Grants & Contributions - page 22. Capital Grants and Contributions. Total governmental activities.
Interest Charges - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Interest (under Debt service:)
Net Book TCA - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Total capital assets, net.
Govt assets not depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets not being depreciated:
Govt assets being depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets being depreciated:
A note on Revenue, point #6 above. We are using Total Revenue for Total Government Funds which includes:

General Revenue (property tax, sales tax and intergovernmental revenue)
Special Revenue (we believe that this is used to account for Workforce Investment Act and various community services programs)
Capital Projects (“Resources used to construct or acquire capital improvements”)
Other Governmental Funds (we believe that this is revenue from the Albany Community Development Agency)
The point behind looking at all revenue streams is that the Finance Decoder presents three charts - “Net Debt to Total Revenues”, “Interest to Total Revenues” and “Government Transfer to Total Revenue” which are best expressed using all revenue streams as the denominator.

Note that the Finance Decoder can also track other dimensions that may be found in an Audited Statement. These are four additional metrics that we could not find and/or don’t apply to the way that the City of Albany conducts business:

Govt other assets
Bus assets not depreciated, Bus assets being depreciated, Bus other assets - Note “The City’s activities are all classified as governmental activities”

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025

Tyche Insights, P.B.C.

[[User:Sage352|Sage352]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Gainesville FL Financial State', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., Sage352 & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

Gainesville, Florida Financial State

2025-12-03T15:15:33Z

Sage352: Copy paste the Albany content into this article for a starting point

The City of Albany and the Strong Towns Finance Decoder
We wanted to find a way to view the health of the City of Albany’s finances over time and we found the Strong Towns Finance Decoder, which we will use in this article.

If you haven’t heard of Strong Towns, we love their vision “Your community needs you to be an effective advocate for change. We can help you get there” which is something that we relate to. Strong Towns has some great journalism and opinion pieces; we like this article as an example of a quality piece that speaks to how we measure America’s infrastructure.

Strong Towns recently released the Finance Decoder, a tool to “visualize your city’s financial trajectory, and understand whether your city is on track to keep its development, service and growth promises.” The tool is fairly straightforward: 1) you collect your city’s yearly, publicly available audited statements, 2) wade through the audited statements to find a dozen key numbers and input them into the Decoder tool (a Google Sheet), 3) review to make sure you did the data entry correct. What do Audited Statements look like? This is an example from 2018 of the City of Albany’s Audited Financial Statement that we are drawing data from.

We like the Strong Towns’ Finance Decoder for a number of reasons. You don’t need to be a CPA to input the data, you only need some patience to find key numbers such as the City’s total liabilities, or yearly interest payments. The tool presents the City’s data using 7 basic charts which are relatively easy for a layperson (like us!) to visualize and understand. The story presented is high level and does not get into the weeds; having read through a number of the Audited Statements it is easy to get overwhelmed with accounting details.

In the remainder of this article we will speak to our high-level process, we will describe one of the biggest caveats when looking at the data, we will show the 7 charts with their descriptions, and, lastly, we will provide a more detailed account of our process for those who want to know and/or validate what we did.

After reading this article you may want to read an article about Albany's Budgets from 2017 to 2025.

GASB 75 and Increasing Liabilities in 2018
An important note when looking at Albany’s finances - the biggest surprise when inputting audited financial information was what happened in 2018’s financial statements and related data. The Liabilities line jumped from $359 million in liabilities to $718 million between 2017 and 2018. What happened?

In the auditor’s narrative “Effective January 1, 2018, the City adopted GASB Statement No. 75, Accounting and Financial Reporting for Postemployment Benefits Other Than Pensions (GASB 75)”. GASB is the Governmental Accounting Standards Board; the board recommended a significant change to the accounting of Postemployment Benefits “Postemployment benefits” are employee benefits other than pensions that are received after employment ends, such as medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits. This was a pervasive accounting change that impacted many cities, not just Albany, and yielded lots of questions.

The net impact of GASB 75 is that any chart that uses Liabilities in the formula will show a significant change between 2017 and 2018 with the 2018 showing a more negative presentation. Our point of view is that 2018’s data shows an increased liability that was there all along and that did not surface until the GASB accounting change. This is not an indictment of the City of Albany, this is a reflection that the way of doing things changed for all government entities.

7 Charts that explain Albany
Sustainability Indicator - Net Financial Position

What it is:
The difference between the city’s financial assets (like cash and receivables) and its liabilities (like debt and pensions). This is the cumulative surplus/deficit that the city has accumulated through successive budget cycles.

What it tells you:
A positive net financial position suggests the city has more financial assets than obligations and is in a better position to weather downturns, invest in infrastructure, or respond to emergencies without resorting to borrowing or service cuts. If this number is negative, the city has spent more than it has saved and is relying on future revenue to pay past bills.

What the trend shows:
A downward trend means the city is growing more reliant on borrowing or deferring payments. An upward trend means it’s becoming more financially secure.

Sustainability Indicator - Financial Assets to Liabilities

What it is:
The city’s financial assets—such as cash, receivables, and other short-term holdings—divided by its total liabilities. This is a different way of presenting the Net Financial Position.

What it tells you:
This ratio shows whether the city has enough liquid financial resources to cover what it owes. A ratio below 1 means it would not be able to pay off its liabilities using only its financial assets, which is a sign of financial stress.

What the trend shows:
A rising trend means the city is improving its financial buffer. A falling trend suggests the city is becoming less able to handle its obligations without borrowing or cutting services.

Sustainability Indicator - Total Assets to Total Liabilities

What it is:
The value of all the city’s assets (including infrastructure) divided by its total liabilities.

What it tells you:
A ratio above 1 means the city owns more than it owes (solvent). Below 1 means it owes more than it owns (insolvent).

What the trend shows:
A downward trend means the city is becoming less solvent. An upward trend shows improving financial resilience.

Sustainability Indicator - Debt to Total Revenues

What it is:
The total liabilities the city owes compared to how much revenue it collects in a year.

What it tells you:
This shows how many years of income it would take to pay off all debts if every dollar went to debt repayment.

What the trend shows:
If the ratio is rising, debt is growing faster than income—this is unsustainable. If it’s falling, the city is gaining control of its obligations.

Flexibility Indicator - Interest to Revenues

What it is:
The percentage of annual revenue spent on interest payments.

What it tells you:
This shows how much of the budget is consumed by past borrowing. The higher the percentage, the less room for services, maintenance, or investment.

What the trend shows:
An increasing trend limits future choices and can crowd out basic services. A decreasing trend improves flexibility and budget health.

Flexibility Indicator - Value to cost of tangible assets

What it is:
The current value of the city’s physical assets compared to their original cost.

What it tells you:
This indicates how well the city is maintaining its infrastructure. A low value means assets are aging and wearing out.

What the trend shows:
A declining trend means the city is falling behind on maintenance. A stable or rising trend suggests it is keeping up

Results - Govt Transfers to Total revenue

What it is:
The share of the city’s income that comes from state or federal aid.

What it tells you:
High dependency on outside funding makes the city vulnerable to political or economic shifts beyond its control.

What the trend shows:
If the trend is rising, the city is becoming more dependent on outside help. If it’s falling, the city is strengthening its local revenue base.

Data
For this study we used the City of Albany’s Audited Financial statements from 2014 through 2023. This gives us 10 years of Audited data to input into the template. We collected the Audited Financial statements from the City’s archive and the Treasurer’s site. Note that we expect the 2024 audited statement to be available in September or October 2024.

Importantly the audited statements discuss what are generally thought of as the City’s finances and the “Component Units” of the city which include the Albany Parking Authority, the Albany Water Board, and the Albany Industrial Development Agency. For our Strong Towns Finance Decoder we only used data for what is termed the “Primary Government” in the audited statements and we did not include data for the Component Units.

While we have made every attempt to ensure that we have done the data entry correctly, and we believe that we have input correct information into the Finance Decoder it is possible that we have made one or more mistakes. We appreciate readers noting any issues that they see.

Note that we are making a copy of the completed Finance Decoder available here. This document is a Google Sheet and you will have read-only access to the Finance Decoder. We recommend saving a copy (File > Make a Copy) if you want to analyze, change, recreate, etc.

Process
In this section we will provide details on how and where we drew information from the Audited Financial Statements. There are 12 data points that we gathered. We will use the 2021 Statement as an example of where, specifically, we found the data.

Recall that we are only focused on the financial data related to the “Primary Government” and not the financial data of the “Component Units”, e.g. Albany IDA. Below we will also refer to the PDF page numbers and not the document page number.

Current Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Total Assets - Capital Assets, Net.
Capital Assets - page 21. Primary Government column. Capital Assets, Net.
Deferred Outflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred outflows of resources.
Liabilities - page 21. Primary Government column. Total liabilities.
Deferred Inflows - page 21. Primary Government column. Total deferred inflows of resources.
Total Revenues - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Total revenues.
Operating Grants & Contributions - page 22. Operating Grants and Contributions column. Total governmental activities.
Capital Grants & Contributions - page 22. Capital Grants and Contributions. Total governmental activities.
Interest Charges - page 24. Total Government Funds column. Interest (under Debt service:)
Net Book TCA - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Total capital assets, net.
Govt assets not depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets not being depreciated:
Govt assets being depreciated - page 42. Note 7 - Capital Assets. Balance December 31, 2021. Capital assets being depreciated:
A note on Revenue, point #6 above. We are using Total Revenue for Total Government Funds which includes:

General Revenue (property tax, sales tax and intergovernmental revenue)
Special Revenue (we believe that this is used to account for Workforce Investment Act and various community services programs)
Capital Projects (“Resources used to construct or acquire capital improvements”)
Other Governmental Funds (we believe that this is revenue from the Albany Community Development Agency)
The point behind looking at all revenue streams is that the Finance Decoder presents three charts - “Net Debt to Total Revenues”, “Interest to Total Revenues” and “Government Transfer to Total Revenue” which are best expressed using all revenue streams as the denominator.

Note that the Finance Decoder can also track other dimensions that may be found in an Audited Statement. These are four additional metrics that we could not find and/or don’t apply to the way that the City of Albany conducts business:

Govt other assets
Bus assets not depreciated, Bus assets being depreciated, Bus other assets - Note “The City’s activities are all classified as governmental activities”
Credits
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

© Copyright 2025
Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
KarlTyche (Karl Urich)
For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Albany NY FinanceDecoder', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., KarlTyche & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

User:Sage352

2025-12-03T15:13:57Z

Sage352: Created page with " Writing for the 352 area code and I prefer to remain anonymous."

Writing for the 352 area code and I prefer to remain anonymous.