The City of Bayfield is sailing in perilous budget waters. Years of constraints imposed by the state of Wisconsin on municipal budgets is challenging our city operations as never before. Some difficult choices loom. This website's ambition is to shed light on the nooks and crannies of the city budget, so that taxpayers can most effectively express their preferences to elected officials.

The budget is a complicated thing, and humility is appropriate when trying to wrap your mind around it. This website is my attempt to understand it richly enough to knowledgeably engage our Common Council and Mayor on the choices we face.

Some topics that I'm curious about:

• options for raising revenue and ways that the state constrains these

• borrowing as a tool for our city

• the funds that the city manages and constraints on them

• how experts in municipal finance see the future unfolding for the budget

• capital improvement plans and how these are financed

• how expenses are changing

• how various enterprises, like the harbor, pavilion, library, etc, work within the whole city budget.

This is going to take a while. Look at the links below to learn more.