Budget Explorer · City of Raleigh

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Comparable revenue, spending, and debt for City of Raleigh, 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. City of Raleigh's own FY2027 budget, in its own structure, follows below.

Audited actuals · Census classification · 477K residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$1.32B

$2,767 per resident

Total spending

$1.29B

$2,704 per resident

Spending per resident

$2,704

30th percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$1.57B

$3,303 per resident · 38th percentile of 70

Own-source share

81%

49th percentile of 71

Capital share

34%

92nd percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$1.32B 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$360M27%
General sales tax$154M12%
Selective sales taxes$680K0%
License & other taxes$27M2%
Federal aid$87M7%
State & local aid$139M11%
Charges & fees$332M25%
Interest, fines, other$86M6%
Utility revenue$135M10%

Own-source share of general revenue 81% · federal aid 7% · property tax is 66% of taxes

Where it goes

$1.29B 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.

Environment & housing$382M30%
Public safety$237M18%
Utilities (water, power, gas)$177M14%
Transportation$160M12%
General government$136M11%
Culture & recreation$136M11%
Interest on debt$60M5%
Transfers to other governments$135K0%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
Sewerage	Environment & housing	$64M	$196M	$260M
Water utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$99M	$78M	$177M
Police protection	Public safety	$140M	$2.9M	$143M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$75M	$60M	$136M
Transit	Transportation	$60M	$28M	$89M
Fire protection	Public safety	$78M	$1.9M	$80M
General (unallocable)	General government	$61M	$7.2M	$68M
Highways	Transportation	$34M	$28M	$62M
Housing & community development	Environment & housing	$40M	$20M	$61M
Solid waste management	Environment & housing	$45M	—	$45M
General public buildings	General government	$22M	$13M	$35M
Natural resources	Environment & housing	$16M	—	$16M
Financial administration	General government	$15M	—	$15M
Protective inspection & regulation	Public safety	$14M	—	$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

+20% over 2 yrs

$1.10B → $1.32B

Spending

+22% over 2 yrs

$1.06B → $1.29B

Debt outstanding

+13% over 2 yrs

$1.39B → $1.57B

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	City of Raleigh	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$2,704	$3,741	30th	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$2,767	$3,548	26th	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$1,135	$1,328	39th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$3,303	$3,865	38th	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	81%	81%	49th	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	7%	7%	57th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	34%	18%	92nd	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	5%	4%	60th	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	1.19×	1.05×	62nd	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 372183171305 (Raleigh City). 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

City of Raleigh'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 25 departments.

$653M total

Police$162M25%
Fire$101M15%
Special Appropriations$87M13%
Parks, Recreation and Cultural$84M13%
Transportation Services$48M7%
Engineering Services$36M5%
Information Technology$34M5%
Planning and Development Services$25M4%
Emergency Communications$18M3%
Finance$8.8M1%
Human Resources$8.0M1%
City Attorney$7.4M1%
All other (13)$33M5%

Parsed from the published budget book (pages 69-72) — General Fund only — the book has no all-funds table by department.
Figures are checked against the total the document itself prints before publishing.
General Fund only. The budget ordinance gives all-funds figures by fund rather than by department.
Rows are divisions rather than departments, which is how Raleigh publishes them.
Raleigh's open-data site is not a Socrata domain and carries no budget dataset.
Source: FY2027 Adopted Budget (General Fund — Appropriations by Division) (published budget book), retrieved 2026-09-08. Open the source document.

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