Budget Explorer · Palm Beach County

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Comparable revenue, spending, and debt for Palm Beach County, 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 Sep 30, 2023. Palm Beach County's own FY2026 budget, in its own structure, follows below.

Audited actuals · Census classification · 1.52M residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$3.81B

$2,510 per resident

Total spending

$3.17B

$2,085 per resident

Spending per resident

$2,085

11th percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$879M

$579 per resident · 2nd percentile of 70

Own-source share

85%

65th percentile of 71

Capital share

12%

33rd percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$3.81B 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$1.61B42%
Selective sales taxes$214M6%
License & other taxes$91M2%
Federal aid$114M3%
State & local aid$446M12%
Charges & fees$871M23%
Interest, fines, other$308M8%
Utility revenue$154M4%

Own-source share of general revenue 85% · federal aid 3% · property tax is 84% of taxes

Where it goes

$3.17B 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.

Public safety$1.29B41%
Environment & housing$593M19%
General government$583M18%
Transportation$350M11%
Culture & recreation$163M5%
Utilities (water, power, gas)$70M2%
Health & hospitals$51M2%
Transfers to other governments$33M1%
Interest on debt$27M1%
Public welfare$5.9M0%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
Police protection	Public safety	$601M	$69M	$671M
Fire protection	Public safety	$328M	$73M	$401M
Solid waste management	Environment & housing	$323M	—	$323M
General (unallocable)	General government	$261M	$50M	$312M
Sewerage	Environment & housing	$105M	$95M	$199M
Corrections (institutions)	Public safety	$188M	$16K	$188M
Financial administration	General government	$140M	$14M	$154M
Transit	Transportation	$133M	$18M	$151M
Highways	Transportation	$66M	$46M	$112M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$85M	$10M	$96M
Air transportation	Transportation	$87M	—	$87M
Water utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$70M	—	$70M
Libraries	Culture & recreation	$52M	$16M	$67M
Judicial & legal	General government	$56M	$1.8M	$57M

Trend · 3 fiscal years

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

Revenue

+13% over 2 yrs

$3.38B → $3.81B

Spending

+15% over 2 yrs

$2.75B → $3.17B

Debt outstanding

-22% over 2 yrs

$1.13B → $879M

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	Palm Beach County	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$2,085	$3,741	11th	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$2,510	$3,548	22nd	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$1,264	$1,328	46th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$579	$3,865	2nd	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	85%	81%	65th	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	3%	7%	20th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	12%	18%	33rd	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	1%	4%	4th	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	0.23×	1.05×	2nd	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 121099101897 (Palm Beach County). 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 · FY2026

Palm Beach County'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 11 functions.

$9.61B total

Public Safety$2.11B22%
Reserves$2.02B21%
Transportation$1.24B13%
General Government$1.18B12%
Interfund Transfers$968M10%
Physical Environment$722M8%
Culture and Recreation$559M6%
Economic Environment$338M4%
Internal Services$208M2%
Human Services$171M2%
Non-Departmental$82M1%

Parsed from the published budget book (page 79, Expenditures by Activity Type) — all funds.
The eleven activity types sum exactly to the county's printed adopted total of $9,606,627,411.
These are activity types rather than named departments. The county's only department-level appropriation table is a 906-page line-item schedule whose adopted column sits mid-row after an appropriation-unit code; it has not been parsed.
Two lines are not services: reserves ($2.02B) and interfund transfers ($968M), which together are almost a third of the budget.
Palm Beach County's FY2027 budget was still tentative when this was captured, with only the first public hearing held.
The county's OpenGov portal belongs to the Clerk and Comptroller and carries actuals and checkbook data only, with no budget datasets.
Source: FY2026 Annual Budget Book (Expenditures by Activity Type) (published budget book), retrieved 2026-09-08. Open the source document.

Looking for how this fits Palm Beach County's capacity to deliver? The fiscal dimension, binding constraint, and pathways live in the Palm Beach County capacity assessment.