Budget Explorer · Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Comparable revenue, spending, and debt for Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, on the same Census classification used for every city, county, and state in the Library — so the figures line up with peers rather than with the government's own budget book. Latest year: FY ending Jun 30, 2024. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government's own FY2027 budget, in its own structure, follows below.

Audited actuals · Census classification · 320K residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$1.13B

$3,526 per resident

Total spending

$881M

$2,751 per resident

Spending per resident

$2,751

32nd percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$962M

$3,002 per resident · 34th percentile of 70

Own-source share

85%

67th percentile of 71

Capital share

26%

77th percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$1.13B total

Own-source revenue (taxes, charges, interest) versus aid from other governments. Utility and trust revenue are shown alongside general revenue but run on their own books.

Property tax$133M12%
Selective sales taxes$84M7%
Income taxes$335M30%
License & other taxes$5.6M0%
Federal aid$86M8%
State & local aid$84M7%
Charges & fees$375M33%
Interest, fines, other$23M2%
Utility revenue$3.8M0%

Own-source share of general revenue 85% · federal aid 8% · property tax is 24% of taxes

Where it goes

$881M total

Current operations plus capital outlay, grouped by Census function. Interest on debt and transfers to other governments are broken out so they are not hidden inside services.

General government$310M35%
Environment & housing$230M26%
Public safety$153M17%
Culture & recreation$76M9%
Transportation$58M7%
Health & hospitals$22M2%
Interest on debt$18M2%
Public welfare$14M2%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
Central staff services	General government	$174M	$99M	$273M
Sewerage	Environment & housing	$39M	$51M	$90M
Housing & community development	Environment & housing	$83M	$100K	$83M
Fire protection	Public safety	$77M	$5.7M	$82M
Solid waste management	Environment & housing	$52M	$6.1M	$58M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$38M	$12M	$50M
Corrections (other)	Public safety	$47M	$501K	$48M
Transit	Transportation	$32M	—	$32M
General (unallocable)	General government	$12M	$15M	$27M
Libraries	Culture & recreation	$17M	$8.3M	$26M
Police protection	Public safety	$15M	$8.6M	$23M
Highways	Transportation	$3.3M	$19M	$22M
Health	Health & hospitals	$22M	—	$22M
Public welfare	Public welfare	$13M	$567K	$14M

Trend · 3 fiscal years

Nominal dollars. The Census Bureau cautions that single-government series are edited only for aggregates — read direction, not decimals.

Revenue

+19% over 2 yrs

$947M → $1.13B

Spending

+56% over 2 yrs

$567M → $881M

Debt outstanding

+80% over 2 yrs

$534M → $962M

How it compares · 71 cities and counties in the Library

Percentile within the cohort on each place's latest Census year. Higher is not better — the last column says what a high reading means so you can decide whether it matters here.

Measure	Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$2,751	$3,741	32nd	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$3,526	$3,548	49th	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$1,739	$1,328	68th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$3,002	$3,865	34th	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	85%	81%	67th	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	8%	7%	58th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	26%	18%	77th	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	2%	4%	20th	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	0.85×	1.05×	35th	more leveraged

About this data

Census classification categories, not this government's own budget structure. Figures are audited actuals for the fiscal year shown, not the adopted budget.
The Census Bureau edits unit-level data only to produce state and national aggregates and advises against reading it as a precise time series for any single government; treat year-over-year moves under ~5% as noise.
Employee-retirement-system revenue is excluded (published separately by Census). Utility and insurance-trust revenue are shown separately from general revenue.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances (Individual Unit public-use files), unit 212067165831 (Lexington-fayette Urban County Government). Retrieved 2026-09-07. Classification manual.

Spot an error, or know a better source for this place's adopted budget? Suggest an edit on the assessment.

Adopted budget · FY2027

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government's own budget, in its own structure, read from its published budget book and checked against the total the document itself prints. This is the current year — more recent than the Census series above, but only comparable to this city's own history. Totals cover 13 departments.

$547M total

Public Safety$299M55%
Contract Debt$55M10%
General Services$50M9%
Partner Agencies$28M5%
General Government$19M3%
Environmental Quality & Public Works$17M3%
Housing$16M3%
Social Services$16M3%
Information Technology$15M3%
Finance$11M2%
Planning and Preservation$10M2%
Chief Administration$7.6M1%
All other (1)$3.1M1%

Parsed from the published budget book (page 18) — General Fund only. The 13 departments sum exactly to the printed General Fund total of $546,709,323.
Lexington publishes department figures across all funds only one division per page; its other funds appear in this summary as fund totals. All funds together come to $954,692,282, or $847,425,627 after interfund transfers.
Lexington-Fayette is a merged city-county government.
The summary is a graphic laid out in rows of five, so each row's labels were matched to its amounts in order and checked against the department names.
Source: FY2027 Adopted Budget (budget summary) (published budget book), retrieved 2026-09-13. Open the source document.

Looking for how this fits Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government's capacity to deliver? The fiscal dimension, binding constraint, and pathways live in the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government capacity assessment.