Chart Book visualizes the Indianapolis and Marion County adopted budget — five years of spending, revenue, and departmental data, all in one place.
Every year, the City of Indianapolis and Marion County publishes its Adopted Budget. It’s a comprehensive document that details how billions of dollars will be collected and spent on behalf of residents. It is thorough, authoritative, and, at roughly 200 pages, not exactly a quick read.
Chart Book takes that document and does something different with it. Instead of asking you to read through dense tables and budget narratives, it puts the numbers in front of you visually so you can understand the shape of the city’s finances in the time it takes to scroll through a chart.
What’s included
Chart Book’s budget data covers the 2026 adopted budget and every year back to 2022, giving you five years of context to work with. The data is organized into three views:
Total budget by service area
How spending breaks down across categories like Public Safety, Administrative, Criminal Justice, and how those allocations have shifted year over year.
Sources of city revenue
Where the money comes from — taxes, fees, intergovernmental transfers, and other funding streams — with trend data going back to 2022.
Funding and expenditures by department
A department-by-department view of what each agency receives and spends. Toggle between departments and instantly see their historical trend alongside the current year’s figures.
Why it’s easier than the source
The City’s Adopted Budget Book is the definitive source, and Chart Book links directly back to it. But there’s a meaningful gap between a number existing in a document and a number being genuinely usable. A 200-page report asks a lot of a reader who just wants to know, say, how the Department of Public Works’ budget has changed since 2022 or what share of city revenue comes from property taxes.
Chart Book closes that gap. Every dataset is searchable, so you can surface the number you’re looking for without knowing exactly where to find it. And because all charts are built with trending in mind, the current year is always shown alongside the years that came before it.
About the budget process
Indianapolis and Marion County begin their annual budget process each May. After months of departmental requests, public hearings, and City-County Council deliberations, a final adopted budget is typically approved each October. Chart Book is updated to reflect the newly adopted budget after each cycle.
Coming soon…
A downloadable flat file of the complete budget detail data — clean, curated, and ready for your own analysis. No reformatting required.
The budget is one of the most direct expressions of a city’s priorities. Chart Book is here to make sure that document is readable by anyone who wants to engage with it, not just those with the time to comb through every page.