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Top 20 U.S. Counties by Budget — and Their CIOs

One state has a lot of the biggest county budgets. Guess which one?

California is home to 40 percent of the country’s top-spending counties.

After looking last week at the top 20 municipal budgets in the U.S., we decided to present the equivalent numbers for the other major category of local government as well: the county.

And it turns out, California is, by far, home to the most counties appearing on the list. The state’s spread-out, urban nature means that it has players at the top and bottom of the list: Los Angeles County is second with a budget of $30 billion, and Sacramento County is tied for last place at $4 billion.

Of course, there are four entries on the list that overlap the city budgets list — San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York City are all consolidated city-counties, so they appear on both. If one were to be a purist and exclude those from the list, the next four would be Contra Costa County, Calif.; Orange County, Fla.; Prince George’s County, Md.; and Suffolk County, N.Y.

Here are the chief information officers (or their equivalents) from all 20 counties:

  • New York City: Anne Roest
  • Los Angeles County: Peter Loo
  • District of Columbia: Archana Vemulapalli
  • San Francisco: Ken Bukowski
  • Philadelphia: Charles Brennan
  • Fairfax County, Va.: Wanda Gibson
  • Miami-Dade County: Angel Petisco
  • Clark County, Nev.: Michael Lane
  • Santa Clara County, Calif.: Ann Dunkin
  • Orange County, Calif.: Charles Eckstrom
  • Montgomery County, Md.: Sonny Segal
  • King County, Wash.: Bill Kehoe
  • Riverside County, Calif.: Steve Reneker
  • San Bernardino County, Calif.: Jennifer Hilber
  • San Diego County: Mikel Haas
  • Cook County, Ill.: Simona Rollinson
  • Hillsborough County, Fla.: Ramin Kouzehkanani
  • Palm Beach County, Fla.: Steven Bordelon
  • Broward County, Fla.: John Bruno
  • Sacramento County, Calif.: Rami Zakaria
Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.