City Comparison
This view is for fair benchmarking, not leaderboard theater. The comparison badge reflects whether the cities are actually similar enough for a strong side-by-side read.
Reasonable comparison
This is directionally useful, but structural and data-coverage differences still matter.
Santa Ana scores 4 points higher than Newport Beach primarily because it shows lighter public burden, leaner spending allocation, lower vendor concentration risk.
Santa Ana leads by 25 points on public burden.
Santa Ana leads by 11 points on spending efficiency.
Santa Ana leads by 11 points on vendor risk.
Newport Beach
66
/100
Watchlist
Confidence: High
Reserves are trending upward
Newport Beach shows an improving reserve direction versus recent years.
Vendor concentration is elevated
29.6% of tracked payments flow to the top vendor, which is above the peer median.
Consulting spend is rising faster than staffing
Outside services growth leads staffing by 13.1 points.
Santa Ana
70
/100
Stable
Confidence: High
Reserves are trending upward
Santa Ana shows an improving reserve direction versus recent years.
Vendor concentration is elevated
22.4% of tracked payments flow to the top vendor, which is above the peer median.
Consulting spend is rising faster than staffing
Outside services growth leads staffing by 12.4 points.
Default metrics favor per-resident or share-of-budget framing over raw dollars.
| Metric | Newport Beach | Santa Ana |
|---|---|---|
| GovMatrix score | 66/100 | 70/100 |
| Administrative overhead | 0.0% | 21.0% |
| Top vendor share | 29.6% | 22.4% |
| Budget growth YoY | 6.6% | -0.7% |
| Budget per resident | $5,254 | $2,752 |
| Confidence | High | High |
These six pillars make the overall score explainable instead of mystical.
Financial Stability
Newport Beach 70 • Santa Ana 68
Newport Beach: Improving reserves and 6.6% budget growth shape this pillar.
Santa Ana: Improving reserves and -0.7% budget growth shape this pillar.
Spending Efficiency
Newport Beach 66 • Santa Ana 77
Newport Beach: 0.0% administrative overhead and consulting growth drive this score.
Santa Ana: 21.0% administrative overhead and consulting growth drive this score.
Transparency
Newport Beach 87 • Santa Ana 87
Newport Beach: 3/4 documents are parsed into the current dataset.
Santa Ana: 3/4 documents are parsed into the current dataset.
Vendor Risk
Newport Beach 50 • Santa Ana 61
Newport Beach: 29.6% top-vendor share and 1 no-bid contracts affect this pillar.
Santa Ana: 22.4% top-vendor share and 1 no-bid contracts affect this pillar.
Trend / Anomaly
Newport Beach 61 • Santa Ana 54
Newport Beach: Contracted Services is the biggest growth area at 16.1%.
Santa Ana: Professional Services is the biggest growth area at 18.4%.
Public Burden
Newport Beach 57 • Santa Ana 82
Newport Beach: $5,254 per resident frames the current adopted budget.
Santa Ana: $2,751 per resident frames the current adopted budget.
This chart highlights whether the overall budget trend and outside-services growth are moving together.
Newport Beach
3 machine-readable documents and 1 evidence-linked findings back this score.
Santa Ana
3 machine-readable documents and 2 evidence-linked findings back this score.