City Fiscal Woes: neither widespread nor caused by pensions.

• Position: News & Numbers - Brief article

Detroit's bankruptcy and Chicago's pension problems have prompted a wave of speculation about city finances. A new issue brief from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence, Are City Fiscal Woes Widespread? Are Pensions the Cause?, explores the extent to which economic factors, poor fiscal management, and/or high pension costs contribute to the challenges cities with financial problems face.

The brief finds that only a small number of cities overall face serious financial troubles, and a third of them are in California In addition, pensions are a minor factor in financially...