The data

Everything on this site is built from public records, and the tidy data behind every chart is here to download, check or reuse. Dollar figures are nominal whole dollars unless a column says otherwise; fiscal years run July–June and are named for the year they end.

Datasets the charts read

These JSON files are exactly what the pages load. Each row carries its fiscal year; the field names are described in the method notes below.

• annual.jsonOne row per fiscal year FY2001–FY2025: governmental-fund expenditures (current, debt service, capital, total), revenues by source, government-wide accrual expenses, FTEs, debt, tax rates, assessed value, levy, fund balances, enrollment, and the growth benchmarks aligned to the fiscal-year midpoint.
• functions.jsonCurrent expenditures by function (fund basis, FY2001–FY2025) and accrual expenses by function (FY2002–FY2025), with area groups.
• revenues.jsonGovernmental-fund revenues by source, FY2001–FY2025.
• fte_functions.jsonFull-time-equivalent employees by function, FY2001–FY2025.
• gg_split.jsonThe audited General government line split by fund, FY2010–FY2025: General Fund, tourism-tax pass-through, grants and other special funds, disaster recovery.
• departments.jsonAdopted general-fund budgets by department FY2012–FY2026, the FY2027 recommended budget, and the actuals later budget books print.
• admin_lines.jsonBusiness units of the Administrative pool (department 001) by year and basis.
• benchmarks.jsonPopulation, CPI-U, the state-and-local government price deflator, personal income and employed residents, FY2001–FY2026.
• outcomes.jsonOutcome series for schools and public safety, long format: graduation, grades 3–8 proficiency, ACT, absenteeism, enrollment; Part I crime counts and rates, FBI clearance rates, fatal crashes, police/911/sheriff/fire workload. Year basis per row (calendar, school year, fiscal).
• peers.jsonCore spending, total spending, revenues, population and CPI for Nashville and four peer city-counties, FY2014–FY2025, with and without school districts.

Tidy extracts and write-ups

The long-format tables extracted from the source documents (every value carries its source report and PDF page), the department-level budget tables, and the written findings and method notes.

• FINDINGS.md19 KB
• OUTCOMES_FINDINGS.md6 KB
• PEER_FINDINGS.md8 KB
• README_acfr_extraction.md16 KB
• README_benchmarks.md4 KB
• README_budget_extraction.md22 KB
• README_outcomes.md15 KB
• README_peers.md20 KB
• acfr_changes_in_fund_balances.csv971 KB
• acfr_changes_in_net_position.csv1,688 KB
• acfr_debt.csv93 KB
• acfr_demographics.csv18 KB
• acfr_fte_by_function.csv195 KB
• acfr_fund_balances.csv106 KB
• acfr_operating_indicators.csv544 KB
• acfr_property_tax.csv162 KB
• benchmarks_fy.csv6 KB
• budget_book_headlines.csv5 KB
• budget_department_crosswalk.csv19 KB
• budget_schedule1_funds.csv1,113 KB
• budget_schedule3_department_lines.csv2,426 KB
• fy2015_department_actuals_from_fy2017_pages.csv29 KB
• general_government_by_fund.csv2 KB
• outcomes_annual.csv478 KB
• outcomes_wide.csv10 KB
• peer_annual.csv23 KB

Where the originals are

• Metro Nashville Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports: nashville.gov, Division of Accounts (FY2016 onward) and the Finance Department's file archive for earlier years.
• Metro Nashville Operating Budget Books: Citizens' Guide to the Budget and its archive of budget documents.
• Population: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program.
• Prices, income and jobs: Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis series, via FRED.
• Peer cities: each government's own Annual Comprehensive Financial Report and, in North Carolina, the Local Government Commission filings.

The extraction scripts (Python, PyMuPDF) and the validation reports live with the data in the project repository.