One out of every three dollars spent on salary and benefits for people working in Oneida and Herkimer counties goes to government employees, according to an O-D review of recently released federal statistics.
That’s about $2 billion of the almost $6 billion that was spent in 2008 on employee compensation in the two counties, according to the data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
It’s also significantly higher than the statewide 16.7 percent and nationwide 19.3 percent of compensation going to government employees.
Lise Bang-Jensen, senior policy analyst for the Empire Center for Public Policy, said those figures are somewhat worrisome.
“It’s a question of do the two counties have too much government or not enough private-sector jobs?” Bang-Jensen said. “You obviously need private-sector jobs to maintain government.”
More than half of the government-worker compensation for the counties goes to local government employees — which includes county and municipal governments, public school districts, police and emergency workers and the Oneida Indian Nation, officials said.
State and federal government employees working in the counties make up the rest of the $2 billion…
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