Note: This story was updated on July 6 to clarify the per capita cost metric used in the survey.
A recent survey by the personal finance company WalletHub ranked Chattanooga as the second worst run city in the United States out of 149 assessed — beating out only San Francisco.
Chattanooga edged out New York City, which was ranked third worst.
"Even during less difficult times, running a city is a tall order," Adam McCann, financial writer at WalletHub, wrote in the June 20 article. "The larger the city, the more complex it becomes to manage. In addition to representing the residents, local leaders must balance the public's diverse interests with the city's limited resources. That often means not everyone's needs can or will be met."
WalletHub sought to measure the effectiveness of local leadership by comparing the quality of services residents receive to the cost of providing local services. The list includes the 149 most populated cities for which there is data available.
Chattanooga has moved a notch on the ranking of worst run cities, as it was the fourth worst run city in WalletHub's 2022 rankings.
City officials have issues with the methodology of the survey but say they are working to improve performance on many of the factors considered in the ranking.
To determine the quality of services, the company scored cities across six categories — financial stability, education, health, safety, the economy and infrastructure and pollution — by relying on 36 distinct metrics.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga ranked among the best 100 places to live in America)
Those datapoints included the unemployment rate, the violent crime rate, the average life expectancy, the share of sheltered homeless people, public transit, the high school graduation rate, the infant mortality rate and the perception of safety.
WalletHub divided that calculated quality score by the total government budget per capita to determine the rank-order of the cities assessed.
The survey defined "city" broadly, including a standardized set of public services for each locality, whether they were provided by City Hall, the county, the wastewater authority or any number of government agencies. All were assessed as services for a given city's residents, regardless of what agency provided the services.
"Even though Chattanooga has one of the highest budgets per capita, $12,177, the quality of its services is below average, which means the funds are not used efficiently," analyst Jill Gonzalez said in an email.
The city also has relatively high violent and property crime rates, Gonzalez said, indicating a need for investments in the safety of residents. Those rates are 13.6 and 63.6 per 1,000 residents, respectively, according to data from WalletHub.
Runners cross the Brooklyn Bridge on June 8 with a view of New York City, named the third worst-run city in America by WalletHub. (Juan Arredondo/The New York Times)"Chattanooga ranks 129th for motor vehicle fatalities, which could potentially be improved by allocating more of the city's budget into pedestrian safety education and prevention projects," she added. "Another area that requires improvement is Chattanooga's infrastructure, reflected in the low walk, bike and transit scores."
WalletHub analysts worked with academics to select the methodology and metrics based on their relevance and the availability of data, Gonzalez said.
All four Tennessee cities on the list — Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga — ranked in the bottom third. Nampa, Idaho; Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky; and Nashua, New Hampshire, were the top three overall.
The analysis had its limitations. For instance, education and health metrics were considered even though governments at other levels typically take more responsibility for outcomes in those areas than cities do.
Chattanooga city officials had a number of issues with the methodology, most notably the inclusion of government costs beyond those provided by the city itself.
Some of the data used to calculate the scores appears anecdotal, and the methodology could be based in part on perceptions that people have as opposed to actual statistics, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly's interim chief of staff, Jermaine Freeman, said in a phone interview Friday.
"We have people moving here every day," Freeman said. "We have tourists that visit here every day. We have a city that is beloved by the community. We're not a perfect city, but we're certainly trying to move forward."
The city is also making progress across all six categories identified in the WalletHub survey, Freeman said.
As part of Kelly's One Chattanooga plan — a guiding set of policy priorities the mayor introduced when he came into office — the city has been working to boost access to early childhood education. Studies show the period between birth and 4 years old is especially consequential for the brain development of children.
The city has boosted the minimum wage for federal Head Start workers and will be adding more early learning seats once renovations to the James A. Henry building in the Westside community is complete.
Kelly also created an office of community health in April 2021, Freeman said, which helped bolster vaccination rates during the pandemic. The office will now be turning its focus on the social determinants of health — conditions like education, employment, housing and one's social support networks that can have long-term effects on wellness.
President Joe Biden walks from Marine One with members of the Secret Service and his staff June 20 by the Golden Gate Bridge, a landmark of San Francisco, which has been named the worst run city in America by WalletHub. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)The first director of that department, Mary Lambert, recently stepped down after two years in the job and will be replaced on an interim basis by Deputy Director Geeta Maharaj.
The city recently approved a new parks and outdoors plan, which outlines a vision for creating dozens of miles of new public greenways and hundreds of acres of new parkland. This year, Chattanooga officials also celebrated an almost 40% decline in unsheltered homelessness following a spike during the pandemic.
Freeman noted Chattanooga has also been investing more in repairing roads — Kelly's administration is now three years into a four-year pledge to invest $40 million into paving — and officials have received $25 million in federal funding to replace the aging Wilcox Boulevard Bridge, which can no longer support large emergency vehicles or semi-trucks.
"I think that we are definitely improving," Freeman said. "I think we are definitely trying to become much more efficient. ... Do we have some work to do? Sure we do. But I definitely think we are moving in the right direction to make sure we always have an efficient and responsive local government."
Contact David Floyd at dfloyd@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.