Sunday’s column focused on government growth across Mississippi. Today, a closer look at Vicksburg.

Two numbers are the most compelling.

One is that the city has one municipal employee for every 49 residents.

The other is that the per-capita cost of city government here is $1,173.

The numbers, of course, mean nothing in isolation. So consider Starkville in contrast. It has one city employee for every 80 residents and a $681 per-capita cost of local government. That means each year, the City of Vicksburg spends almost $500 more on every man, woman and child who live here than the City of Starkville spends on its people.

Many will think there’s a political message here. That’s not so. Vicksburg has had four mayors since 1993 — Joe Loviza, Robert Walker, Laurence Leyens and Paul Winfield — and while each has talked about not having enough money, the fact is that this town like several others with casino revenue has had comparatively easy sledding for nearly 20 years.

Today, patrons of the five casinos and the casino companies chip in about 30 cents of every dollar the City of Vicksburg spends. That’s a lot of money. What has varied is how each administration has spent it.

During the Loviza years, investments were made in new and remodeled buildings — the police department, convention center, Jackson Street Center, Halls Ferry Park, Central Fire Station makeover and all-new police and fire radios, fire trucks and cars.

During the Walker years, investments were made in extending utilities to annexed areas, new water wells, the community center at Kings and major raises for employees.

During the Leyens years, investments were made in the downtown makeover, paving, citywide landscaping and more infrastructure.

Of course, there was overlap administration-to-administration. The categories are more general than specific, and how Mayor Paul Winfield will steer the city’s finances is yet to be known.

What is clear that his predecessors have created a lot of “built-ins” for the new mayor. These expenses are the continuing costs of capital projects such as the convention center, operation of the pool at city park and lots of other additions, including a swelling of the payroll to 550 people.

Mayor Leyens would gripe every time we compared this city’s employment numbers with other cities, saying the City of Vicksburg does more. That’s true. Vicksburg’s total includes personnel of the exceptional public ambulance service. Most other cities use private services. But Greenville lists 17 airport employees and 25 corrections employees, expenses not incurred by City Hall here, and still has only 450 employees for 42,000 residents — one municipal worker per 92 citizens.

At least one Mississippi town, Biloxi, has casino revenue that enables it to spend more per capita ($1,364) but no town comes close to Vicksburg in the number of municipal employees per resident.

Some cities are facing real budget problems. In Natchez, for example, the mayor and council members started the budget process by announcing 10 percent pay cuts for themselves. And Natchez is a casino town.

Vicksburg, however much the people at City Hall want to deny it, is sitting pretty with a mere $500,000 to trim in the coming year.

It’s one of the wealthiest small towns in the state and probably among the wealthier in America. A lot of the “new money” that came with the casinos has been parlayed into continuing annual expenses. The challenge is to channel the rest to the greatest benefit of the people. Mayors change. That reality doesn’t.