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County Commons · comparison

How two counties spend, per resident

Clark County and Garland County, side by side, dollars per person — with the Arkansas and US county averages as reference lines. Blue is Clark; green is Garland. Every county number is its 2026 budget, cross-footed to its own ordinance; click through to Clark's or Garland's money trail to see any figure's source.
read this first — two different yardsticks

The two county bars compare exactly: both are 2026 budget appropriations, all funds, per resident. The dashed AR and US lines are a different measure — the Census's actual spending for FY2022 ("direct general expenditure," a narrower basis that leaves out reserves, insurance, and capital, two years earlier). So county budgets read higher than the Census actuals by design. Use the benchmark lines for shape and scale, not an exact gap. And the big caveat the Census itself flags: Arkansas gives counties a narrow role (courts, sheriff/jail, records, roads), so its counties spend far less per person than states where counties also run hospitals and welfare.

Total county spending — per resident

Clark $1,018 Garland $1,130 AR avg $466 US avg $1,480

Clark $21,386,230 ÷ 21,000 residents; Garland $113,176,331 ÷ 100,180. County budgets include reserves, employee insurance, and capital that the Census actuals leave out — which is much of why both bars sit above the AR line.

Public safety (sheriff + jail) — per resident

Clark $165 Garland $237 AR avg $132 US avg $207

Clark: Sheriff + jail (operating + maintenance/construction funds). Garland: Sheriff + Detention Fund + detention reserve + jail O&M + commissary. The county corrections role Arkansas assigns is why public safety is a big share in both.

Roads (operating) — per resident

Clark $314 Garland $135 AR avg $90 US avg $89

Operating road funds only. Garland also has a separate one-time $16,000,000 Road & Bridge Improvement fund (≈$160/resident) not shown here — a capital push Clark doesn't have this year. Even so, rural Clark budgets far more per resident on road operations, the classic small-county pattern: more road miles, fewer people to share the cost.

Solid waste — per resident

Clark $90 Garland $147 AR avg $17 US avg $23

Garland runs a large regional solid-waste operation (landfill + collection + stormwater), which is why its per-resident figure towers over Clark and both averages.

Library — per resident

Clark $22 Garland $58 AR avg $11 US avg $11

County library funds. Garland funds a notably larger library system per resident than Clark or the state average.

Where the numbers come from

County figures: each county's 2026 appropriation ordinance, itemized and cross-footed on its own money trail (Clark's 2025-21; Garland's O-25-25). Benchmarks: 2022 Census of Governments — Finance (FY2022), U.S. Census Bureau — Census dollar aggregates divided by 2022 Census population; the national line divides by all US residents, including places with no county government. The Arkansas per-function split and the "narrow county role" caveat are from the same Census release and corroborated by the U. of Arkansas Extension study MP513.

This is the honest version of a comparison chart: exact where the measures match (county to county), clearly caveated where they don't (budget vs. actual, one year vs. another). As more counties come online, each becomes another bar here — same rules, same receipts.