Adopted budget
$839.2M
FY2026
GovMatrix City Score
Santa Ana gets a plain-language judgment backed by traceable evidence.
The score is not a single opaque number. It rolls up fiscal stability, spending allocation, transparency, procurement risk, anomaly signals, and public burden into one citizen-friendly readout.
Peer group: mid-size CA municipalitiesComparison quality: ReasonableModel: score_v2
WestminsterAnaheimIrvineNewport BeachLaguna NiguelPlacentiaSan ClementeAliso ViejoCypressSanta AnaSearch another city
Budget per resident
$2,752
Public-burden framing, not raw-dollar framing
Top vendor share
22.4%
Procurement concentration in tracked payments
Displayed score
70
/100
Stable
Confidence: High
Top-level judgment
Mostly stable, but a few spending or procurement patterns deserve follow-up.
GovMatrix compares Santa Ana against mid-size CA municipalities and compresses the displayed score when source confidence is lower.
Confidence adjustment
Raw model score: 69.9
3 machine-readable documents and 2 evidence-linked findings back this score.
Main reasons
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.
Source coverage is strong
3 documents are parsed and linked into the score context.
Financial Stability
68
/100
Improving reserves and -0.7% budget growth shape this pillar.
Spending Efficiency
77
/100
21.0% administrative overhead and consulting growth drive this score.
Transparency
87
/100
3/4 documents are parsed into the current dataset.
Vendor Risk
61
/100
22.4% top-vendor share and 1 no-bid contracts affect this pillar.
Trend / Anomaly
54
/100
Professional Services is the biggest growth area at 18.4%.
Public Burden
82
/100
$2,751 per resident frames the current adopted budget.
AI explanation layer
Deterministic facts first, language second
In one sentence
Mostly stable, but a few spending or procurement patterns deserve follow-up.
Benchmarked against 6 nearest jurisdictions using population, geography, and source coverage.
What stands out
Reserve trend: Improving
Reserve direction is used as the durability proxy in the current financial stability model.
Budget-to-actual variance: 6.1%
Higher variance can indicate planning drift or year-end pressure.
Top vendor share: 22.4%
Pacific Infrastructure Group accounts for the largest share of tracked payments.
Questions residents should ask
Why did consulting and outside services grow faster than staffing?
This gets at whether recurring work is being shifted into contracts rather than staffed operations.
What procurement process governed payments to Pacific Infrastructure Group?
High vendor concentration is not proof of a problem, but it does merit a sourcing explanation.
Which categories drove the biggest gap between plan and actual spending?
Budget-to-actual drift is where broad totals turn into specific management decisions.
Provenance
Every conclusion should be traceable
Source coverage
4 documents
3 parsed, 1 OCR-only, 0 review-needed
Last updated 2026-03-16
Evidence links
2 findings
Findings are tied to source documents and used to constrain explanations.
3 machine-readable documents and 2 evidence-linked findings back this score.
Budget allocation with context
Toggle between share of tracked spend, per-resident impact, and year-over-year change.
Infrastructure
$1,284,500
79.0% of total
Consulting
$341,850
21.0% of total
Key normalized metrics
Raw totals are less useful than resident-level and peer-relative framing.
Tracked spend per resident
$5
Sample-based operational lens
Budget growth
-0.7%
Year-over-year change in adopted budget
Biggest swing
Professional Services
Up 18.4% year over year
Vendor and procurement pressure
Concentration is a risk indicator, not an accusation.
Top vendor share: 22.4%
Pacific Infrastructure Group
79.0% of top-vendor tracked spend • 1 contracts
$1,284,500
Tracked vendor signal
Civic Advisory Partners
21.0% of top-vendor tracked spend • 1 contracts
$341,850
Tracked vendor signal
What deserves a closer look
These are watch indicators surfaced from current payment, contract, and trend data.
City Manager: Transformation office milestone retainer
Finance: Internal control design workshop
Trend context
Professional Services increased 18.4%, while Capital Outlay moved -7.2%.
Comparison
Compare Santa Ana against similar cities
Benchmarking turns a score into a defensible story.
Strong comparison
Population size, geography, and source coverage make this a strong like-for-like comparison.
Irvine scores 3 points higher than Santa Ana primarily because it shows lighter public burden, lower vendor concentration risk, fewer anomaly signals.
Santa Ana leads by 36 points on public burden.
Irvine leads by 30 points on vendor risk.
Irvine leads by 21 points on trend / anomaly.
GovMatrix score
Santa Ana: 70/100Irvine: 73/100
Administrative overhead
Santa Ana: 21.0%Irvine: 0.0%
Top vendor share
Santa Ana: 22.4%Irvine: 15.1%
Budget growth YoY
Santa Ana: -0.7%Irvine: 40.4%
Budget per resident
Santa Ana: $2,752Irvine: $5,805
Confidence
Santa Ana: HighIrvine: High
| Metric | Santa Ana | Irvine |
|---|---|---|
| GovMatrix score | 70/100 | 73/100 |
| Administrative overhead | 21.0% | 0.0% |
| Top vendor share | 22.4% | 15.1% |
| Budget growth YoY | -0.7% | 40.4% |
| Budget per resident | $2,752 | $5,805 |
| Confidence | High | High |
Santa Ana70/100
Status: Stable
Admin: 21.0%
Vendor: 22.4%
Budget: -0.7%
Irvine73/100
Status: Stable
Admin: 0.0%
Vendor: 15.1%
Budget: 40.4%
Anaheim62/100
Status: Watchlist
Admin: 41.2%
Vendor: 16.8%
Budget: 4.1%
Newport Beach66/100
Status: Watchlist
Admin: 0.0%
Vendor: 29.6%
Budget: 6.6%