By Steve Lord Aurora Beacon-News.

A recent online study ranked the city of Aurora as one of the Top 20 best run cities in America. In the study released Monday, Wallet Hub, an online financial website, had Aurora ranked at 20 out of 150 of the country’s largest cities. It is the second year in a row Aurora has cracked the Top 20 in the Wallet Hub survey, having been ranked at 18 in 2016.

“While today marks only my second month in office, for the past decade I have had the honor of serving on the Aurora City Council with dedicated public servants and working with stalwart city staff members who are all committed to doing what is best for Aurora,” said Mayor Richard Irvin. “We are very proud that our efforts are being recognized locally, regionally and nationally.”

To identify the cities that are managed well by their leaders, WalletHub’s analysts compared 150 of the largest U.S. cities across several categories, including financial stability, education, health, safety and the economy, as well as infrastructure and pollution. These categories were then combined to construct an “Overall City Services” ranking.

Aurora had the highest rating among Illinois cities, with the only other city named being Chicago, which came in at 140.

Aurora ranked seventh on the list for safety, which looks at violent crime, property crime and fatalities per capita. It came in 12th in education, and 16th in health.

In the education area, the survey looks at overall ratings of the schools in town, as well as graduation rates. In the health area, it looks at infant mortality rate, average life expectancy, hospital beds per capita and the quality of the public hospital system.

“A well-run city isn’t just the product of efficient budgeting or well-supplied coffers,” Wallet Hub officials said in the survey. “It is the fruit of countless other decisions, financial or otherwise, that are made on behalf of the public’s best interest.”

Nampa, Idaho, was named the best run city in America.

For more information about the study, see https://wallethub.com/edu/best-run-cities/22869/.