the latter being the fund balance “per capita” for Maiden Rock. As a perennial reminder then, “per capita” figures, while dazzling, can also deceive from a statistical standpoint. Bigger, does not always mean more.

Moving on to the Village of Bay City meanwhile, the per capita fund balance for 2018 stood at $558 per person, or 87.5 percent of village Net Operating Spending.

For Ellsworth, meanwhile, the 2018 fund balance figure was $495 per person, representing 70.3 percent of Net Operating Spending in the Village when taken as a whole.

For Spring Valley the numbers were $335 per person and 53.6 percent of village spending. Finally for Plum City, the 2018 fund balance breakdown came out to $0 per capita and zero percent of Net Operating Spending. As stated above, the fund balance should not be understood as money sitting in a bank, not lack thereof.

Tracking back to individual income per 2018 tax return, meanwhile, and things remained similar to prior years for Prescott, River Falls and Ellsworth, with proximity to the Twin Cities job market resulting in a higher average salary overall.

At the same time, Maiden Rock edged out Ellsworth with an average income of $60,000 to $57,000 for Ellsworth, and no clear pattern was discernable for communities located nearer to Lake Pepin (Plum City and Bay City, respectively) over else those located closer in relative terms to either Highway 29 or Interstate 94 (Spring Valley and Elmwood, respectively). That said, group averages are one thing, and individual outcomes quite another. No matter where in Pierce County you might call home then, take pride and make the most of it, helping to improve the good of all.