Staff Report

When it comes to fund balances as a measure of comparison amongst Pierce County municipalities, not all fund balances are equal. Divided across the county with less respect to proximity with the Twin Cities than might be expected in terms of resident income, 2018 fund balances for Pierce County municipalities are catalogued for comparison at the Wisconsin Policy Forum’s online Data Too. Speaking of which, what’s the Policy Forum’s definition of a “fund balance?” Not what it might appear from the term itself.

“Fund balance data comes from a number of line items in the Municipal Financial Report (MFR),” the Policy Forum states as its definition in calculating “fund balances” from 2018. “Fund balances should not be seen as cash resting in the bank accounts of municipalities; rather , a balance represents a municipalities assets minus liabilities for a given fund or funds at a given point in time.” Going on to say that numbers given are both “restricted and unrestricted fund balances,” such is defined at said Policy Forum to mean that analysts “cannot break out what share of the fund balance is restricted and therefore not available for other needs or priorities.” The moral of this definitive exercise? Always, but ALWAYS, get general definitions before going into particulars for a given data set. That said, these are the official numbers for Pierce County municipal “fund balances” as of 2018.

In the first place with just 119 residents at last census is the Village of Maiden Rock, for which the Policy Forum’s Data Tool assigns a value of $6,676 per capita (per person) to the local “fund balance, the 2018 fund balance representing 441.5 percent of Net Operating Spending. Next up is the City of Prescott, with considerably more inhabitants but a 2018 “fund balance” of $1,079 per person, representing 156.5 percent of Net Operating Spending for the 2018 fiscal year. Coming in third for Pierce County is the Village of Elmwood, with a 2018 fund balance measuring $952 per person and/or 142.1 percent of Net Operating Spending for 2018, taken as a whole.

For the City of River Falls, meanwhile, the 2018 fund balance registered at the Wisconsin Policy Forum’s Data Tool is $657 per capita, representing 86.4 percent of Net Operating Spending. Multiply 657 by 15,000, meanwhile, and you get $9.855 million, considerably more than the $794,444 one gets by multiplying 119 by $6,676,