Following the money in four Alabama city governments

  Since the beginning of the Great Recession, cities across the United States have struggled to keep their municipal budgets in the black, balancing rising costs for healthcare, energy and pensions while facing reductions in revenues. Some of Alabama’s municipalities are healthy enough to quickly rebound once the need for fiscal belt tightening ends. For others, the economic woes of the past five years are part of a never-ending string of financial crises. It is often hard for the average person to tell whether their hometown is trying to right-size itself in a sluggish economy or if its economic woes are symptomatic of more serious problems.