Very interesting article.
Cheyenne is a surprise, but yet not a big one. It doesn't have the tax base to support much beyond basic government functions, if I remember correctly. I haven't been in years, but I have fond memories of my visit. The article isn't really forthcoming with much detail about the town.
EDIT: I dug into that was linked to in the OP article and found this:
But how do we measure the effectiveness of local leadership? One way is by determining a city’s operating efficiency. In other words, we can learn how well city officials manage and spend public funds by comparing the quality of services residents receive against the city’s total budget.
Using that approach, WalletHub compared the operating efficiency of 150 of the largest U.S. cities to reveal which among them are managed best. We constructed a “Quality of Services” score made up of 38 metrics grouped into six service categories, which we then measured against the city’s per-capita budget.
Yeah, you are more or less correct. Most of Cheyenne is propped up by being the state capital and its supporting government bodies as well as the F.E. Warren airforce base.
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