ABSTRACT
This entry provides a comprehensive description of local government financial emergencies. It discusses the continuum of fiscal health, focusing on fiscal emergencies, which represent stages two, three, and four of this continuum. The entry includes a description and discussion of how preventing fiscal emergencies requires an ongoing system of financial monitoring. Such financial monitoring can provide a warning of fiscal problems that may affect the community. The entry also presents an example of state oversight of financial emergencies, and points out that financial emergencies are not only a local problem, but a state problem as well. The entry explains that each state has its own unique way of dealing with the emergency, although there are generic fiscal strategies for eliminating fiscal emergencies that states have in common. These strategies generally operate through state laws governing fiscal emergencies.
