WASHINGTON — A new report ranked D.C. at the bottom of the list when it comes to the return on investment with police spending.
WalletHub calculated how efficiently the 110 most populated U.S. cities spend taxpayer dollars on police protection, and D.C. ranked in last place.
WalletHub determined its rankings by calculating each city’s ROI on police spending based on crime rates and per-capita expenditures on police forces after normalizing the data by poverty rate, unemployment rate and median household income.
D.C.’s spending per capita is $978 and its crime rate is 5.57 percent, according to WalletHub.
The police spending per capita in D.C. is six times higher than in Louisville, Kentucky, where $155 is spent per capita.
The No. 1 city for ROI with police spend is Flint, Michigan, where there is $269 spent per capita and a crime rate of 8.96 percent.
According to the latest finance data from the U.S. Census Bureau, “local governments comprised 86.8 percent of the state and local government total spending on police protection,” which added up to $97 billion in 2012.
WalletHub ranked the cities by dividing the total safety rate (100 percent minus property and violent crime rates) by police spending per capita.
Also on the list are Virginia cities Richmond (No. 51), Norfolk (No. 59), Virginia Beach (No. 66) and Chesapeake (No. 75). Baltimore is listed at No. 93.
WalletHub used fiscal year 2011 data from U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to determine its rankings.
View a map of the rankings around the country:
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