Cedar Rapids best run city in Iowa: Report

CEDAR RAPIDS - Iowa's best run city is Cedar Rapids, according to a report evaluating the best run cities in America.

The personal finance website WalletHub.com ranked Cedar Rapids as the No. 49 overall best-run in the United States and No. 14 for best city services.

'I am proud of Cedar Rapids and appreciate being acknowledged for the hard work of staff and council to make the best decisions for our city,” said Jeff Pomeranz, Cedar Rapids city manager. 'We will all continue to work hard and look for opportunities to become even better.”

The analysis measures the 'budgeting efficiency” of America's 150 largest metro areas.

Cities' total per capita budget are combined with a city services score, which is based on six indicators: financial stability, education, health, safety, economy and infrastructure and pollution. Those indicators come from 25 metrics, including water quality, violent-crime rate per capita, unemployment rate, infant mortality rate and life expectancy.

In Iowa, only Cedar Rapids and Des Moines made the cut for the list. Des Moines ranks No. 68, including No. 45 for city services and No. 80 for budget per capita.

Cedar Rapids ranked No. 71 for budget per capita. Within the city services score, Cedar Rapids ranked No. 32 for financial stability, No. 43. for education, No. 49 for health, No. 34 for safety, No. 11 for economy and No. 77 for infrastructure and pollution.

Boise, Idaho is the overall best-run city in America, while Nampa, Idaho, has the top rank for total budget per capita, and Bismark, North Dakota, tops the city services category, according to the report.

'City leaders must choose which services are most essential to provide, which agencies' budgets to cut, whether and how high to raise taxes, among other important decisions that affect the daily lives of residents,” according to the WalletHub report. 'Those decisions, in turn, translate to a city's operating efficiency and overall quality of life.”

The data for the analysis comes from a variety of sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Council for Community and Economic Research, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Moody's Investors Service, GreatSchools.org, County Health Rankings, Health Resources and Services Administration, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.