In 2023, WalletHub named Chattanooga the second-worst run city in the United States, but Mayor Tim Kelly questioned how the company calculates its rankings, and the city won’t be part of future versions of the report until the issue is clarified.
“We were troubled by the poor ranking WalletHub has attributed to our city over the last few years’ lists as it is a conspicuous outlier compared to our track record of financial stewardship and budget best practices,” Kelly wrote in a letter to WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou on May 31.
In 2023, Chattanooga only beat San Francisco out of the 149 cities WalletHub assessed that year. Nampa, Idaho, was named the best run city that year.
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