A decade of growth in the U.S. economy allowed cities to patch fiscal holes left by the financial crisis and recession, but a surprising number now see new signs of trouble, the Wall Street Journal reported. The proportion of American cities expecting general-fund revenue to drop more than 3 percent when the books close on the 2019 fiscal year increased to 27 percent from 17 percent in fiscal 2018, when adjusted for inflation. That is one of the findings from a Wall Street Journal analysis of data collected from 478 U.S. municipalities by the National League of Cities, an advocacy group. The total general-fund revenue reported by these cities — locales that span the U.S. — is expected to be lower in fiscal 2019 than in fiscal 2018, adjusted for inflation, the first such dip in seven years. Cities in the survey range in population from the low tens of thousands to the millions.
