How many workers at the federal, state, county, city or town level does it take to govern us?
And how much do we the people want to pay to be governed?
It?s a topic of concern that we know we share with you. And it?s one to which we?ll return a lot on this page.
Federal expenditures pump $60 billion into the Maryland economy through wages, contracts and grants. That?s without any calculation for a multiplier effect, one that takes into account all of the goods and services to support the existence of the federal departments and contractors who employ so many of us.
Let?s take a look at state and local government growth in the Baltimore region from 1996 to 2005, the years for which data is available from the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.
During that time, local government ? city and county ? growth has exploded in our suburbs. In Carroll County, local government employment grew 33 percent. Meanwhile, local government employment grew 28 percent in Anne Arundel and 14 percent in Baltimore County. In Howard County, local government grew 47 percent.
State government employment grew 10 percent in aggregate in five counties surrounding Baltimore. But in one of the counties ? Harford ? state government climbed 55 percent during that time period.
Why the surge?
John Samples, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University and a Cato Institute scholar who studies representative government, says local governments may have hired more employees since Sept. 11, 2001, to manage the increased federal government grants coming to cities, largely for defense.
Bigger federal budgets mean more local bureaucrats to handle the new money coming to the states to secure their citizens.
But Alan Berube of the Brookings Institution, who studies urban demographics, suggests that population probably plays more of a role. Senior government officials, of course, probably prefer this notion. “As new people move in, servicedemands go up.”
He?s right. Population in the entire region, save for Baltimore City, went up.
But not as much as the size of government. The population rose 13 percent from 1996 to 2004 in Harford County, according to the Census Bureau?s most recent statistics, while the number of state government employees climbed 55 percent. In Carroll County, the population rose 15 percent, less than half the rate of local government employment. And in Howard County, the population grew 19 percent while local government employment grew 47 percent. The same trend applies to Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties.
In Baltimore City, state government employment shrank 3 percent and city government employment fell 8 percent over that time period. How could a bastion of Democratic politics become an example of how to trim government payrolls? It turns out government cutting closely aligns with the decrease in its size, which has lost about 5 percent of its population from 1996 to 2004.
We don?t know why local governments need so many more people than previously to provide their residents with public services.
Do you?
But what is clear is that these state and local government jobs pay better than private industry, making government a competitor in a tight job market and a driver of wage inflation. According to the most recent figures available ? from the third quarter of fiscal 2005 ? local government employees make an average of $831 per week and state government employees make $844 per week in Maryland. Meanwhile, the average private-sector salary is $820 per week in the state.
We think you deserve to know what you?re paying for. It?s up to you to decide whether heftier local governments are making you safer, smarter and better recreated or just making government bigger. Let your elected officials know what you think.
