Budget data

Starbridge has the highest quality data on government budgets. We locate each government’s most recent published budget document and pull the total operating expenditures out of it, for whatever year is most current. Other available Buyer Attributes tell you where that number actually came from:

• Budget Confidence. Was it read straight from a document (Verified), or estimated from population and similar entities when no document could be found (Inferred)? Over 80% of records are Verified.
• Latest Budget Year tells you which fiscal year the amount reflects.
• Budget URL. For any Verified record, this links to the source document itself, so you can check the number or dig into the full line-item breakdown.
• Budget Subscription Based IT Spend captures subscription-based IT expenditures when they show up in the budget. This one’s never inferred, only reported when it’s actually there.

Governments structure their budgets differently, so the total might be General Fund only or it might cover all funds. Treat it as a way to compare relative size and prioritize accounts, not as a certified accounting figure. Operating Budget Amount isn’t available for individual schools, though it is available for school districts. Budget data refreshes annually. For the full field definitions, see All Starbridge Data. You can also use Bridges to pull custom line items out of a budget, like how much a city spends on Parks & Rec. For a walkthrough of this in practice, see Tracking your buyer’s budget.

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