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Portfolio Demo · Open Data

Bay Area Budget Dashboard

An interactive explorer comparing municipal spending across eleven South Bay cities. Filter by department, view year-over-year trends, and see where public money actually goes.

React TypeScript Open Data Tailwind CSS WCAG 2.1 AA 11 Cities · FY 2024-25

The problem

Municipal budgets are technically public. In practice, they're posted as multi-hundred-page PDFs that meet the legal transparency requirement while remaining effectively unreadable. Residents who want to understand how their tax money is spent have nowhere to start.

The approach

Pull from open data portals, normalize the category structure across cities, and surface the comparisons that are actually informative: how does Campbell's parks spending stack up against Cupertino's? What percentage goes to public safety vs. infrastructure? Fast to load, no login required.

Why it matters

Tools like this reduce the public records burden on city staff. When residents can get answers themselves, they file fewer FOIA requests and show up to budget hearings with better questions. That's a direct operational benefit for the agencies that deploy them.

Portfolio · Financial Analytics

Bay Area Budget Dashboard

Explore and compare municipal budgets across South Bay cities. Figures sourced from publicly available adopted budget documents. Department breakdowns are approximate where exact allocations were not published.

Total Budget

$106.7M

General Fund

$69.0M

Per Capita (GF)

$1,594

Population

43,281

Budget Trend

Show
FY 2021-22FY 2025-26:+25.5%$55.0M$69.0M
$55M$61M$67M$72MFY22FY23FY24FY25FY26$69.0M
FY23FY24FY25FY26
+5.5%+6.9%+6.5%+4.5%

Historical figures from published adopted budget documents. Years marked as estimated where direct source was not available.

Department Spending

Approximate based on published budget documents

Public Safety$34.5M · 32.3%
Public Works$8.3M · 7.8%
General Government$6.9M · 6.5%
Non-Departmental$6.2M · 5.8%
Parks & Recreation$5.5M · 5.2%
Community Development$4.8M · 4.5%
Library$2.8M · 2.6%

Revenue Sources

  • Property Tax$28.0M (26.2%)
  • Sales Tax$18.0M (16.9%)
  • Charges for Services$12.0M (11.2%)
  • Other Taxes$8.0M (7.5%)
  • Intergovernmental$5.0M (4.7%)
  • Other$35.7M (33.5%)

City Comparison

Palo Alto
$3,544
Mountain View
$2,141
Sunnyvale
$1,690
Santa Clara
$1,669
San Jose
$1,629
Campbell
$1,594
Los Gatos
$1,574
Cupertino
$1,502
Los Altos
$1,370
Milpitas
$1,274

Budget Detail

Approximate based on published budget documents

Public Safety$34.5M32.3%$797
Public Works$8.3M7.8%$192
General Government$6.9M6.5%$159
Non-Departmental$6.2M5.8%$143
Parks & Recreation$5.5M5.2%$127
Community Development$4.8M4.5%$111
Library$2.8M2.6%$65
Total$106.7M100.0%$2,465