How's your personal fund balance doing these days? If you’re a private citizen, that could well depend on tax season this year’s tax season, and whatever loopholes to the Sixteenth Amendment you qualify for. If you’re a legally incorporated municipality, on the other hand, it could also depend somewhat on tax season–though in terms of what follows, ‘fund balance should be understood to mean ‘assets minus liabilities,’ rather than ‘money in the bank.’ It’s the defintion given by Wisconsin Policy Forum in putting together the data. So what do the numbers say?

Starting in the Village of Cadott nestled along State Highway 29 to the west, the 2018 fund balance per capita was $56 per person as a measure of budgeted village funds, while the Cadott property tax levy was set at $421 per capita (not necessarily uniform as based on property value assesments) and shared revenue was awarded at 166 per capita, or head.

Going next to Boyd, the fund balance figure for 2018 was set at 593 dollars per capita, while the property tax levy averaged out to $379 dollars per citizen and shared revenue was set at $279 per person.

Coming next to Stanley (with twice the number of people in the city for official census count than are generally seen out on a day-to-day basis, if you catch my meaning), the 2018 fund balance figure was set at $525 dollars per person, while shared revenue was set at $274 a head and the property tax levy averaged out to $114 per person, though property taxes are properly assessed on landowners rather than the population as a whole. As such, “per capita” figures for such are potentially misleading .

At any rate, and switching on over to Thorp to the east, the 2018 fund balance was set at $761 per person, while the property tax levy come in at an average $288 per head and shared revenues measured $356 per capita, the term interchangeable with “person” and “head.”

Switching back west as the crow flies to Cornell, meanwhile, the 2018 city fund balance was $714 per person, while the property tax levy was set at $322 a head and shared revenue funds were $416 per person, no precise source specified for these. Then a notable spike happens in assets versus liabilities.

Up at Gilman, Wisconsin, the 2018 fund balance came in at $2,885, or roughly four times the nearest competitior. The Gilman property tax levy was $497 per person and shared revenues came in at $393 per person as an average. So what’s with the big spike over other municipalities in terms of the asset versus liabilities ledger? That remains unclear.

At the same time, Gilman began paperwork (not funding) for its library expansion in 2018, per the village clerk. Coming in at $560,000, the project funded in part through an outside CDBG grant had paperwork started that year, while costs came later. At the same time, Clerk Grunseth said that the village of Gilman had purchased a plow truck for which they had taken out a loan in 2018, said plow truck estimated to have cost the village $126,000. As to the library expansion, the clerk said that the local Friends group had come alongside to raise money to go along with the CDBG library building grant, along with paying for some of the engineering cost for the expansion, estimated as $75,000.

Whatever the breakdown, it seems the capital improvement project was worth it. With the improved library facilities in Western Taylor County , Gilman has a building to be proud of for years to come.

* All figures in dollars per capita, as sourced from the Wisconsin Policy Forum Data Tool.