Budget Trends Report for U.S. Cities

Every month, Starbridge processes millions of public documents—board meeting minutes, strategic plans, RFPs, and contracts—to help businesses identify their best-fit public sector customers.

Executive summary

We ranked which cities have the budget for new products and services this year. We analyzed thousands of public documents including

• YoY budget trends, funding cuts and allocated funding sources
• Leadership Changes
• Layoffs, hiring sprees /freezes, new grants
• Major population changes
• Meeting videos & transcripts and more

The Starbridge propensity score tells you the color around every account - helping you to know who is going to spend and why.

Top trends

• 36 cities are aggressively spending in 2026.
• 38% of cities are open to spend this year.
• California has the highest concentration of aggressive spenders.

What you'll learn

• Which cities show the strongest budget increases, and why
• Where city budgets are shrinking, and how that affects purchasing behavior
• Where vendors should prioritize, or deprioritize outreach based on city budget momentum