State and local governments in New York employ more workers per capita than other big states, including neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut, according to data released yesterday by the Census Bureau.

The bureau reported that there were 1,190,287 people in the state collecting paychecks from state and municipal governments in March 2006, including 249,208 from the state.

But the overall number is up only 7 percent from 1995, when then-Gov. George Pataki first took office. He left at the end of 2006 after serving three terms.

By comparison, government employment in New Jersey jumped 17 percent during that period. In Connecticut, it increased 14 percent, according to figures extrapolated from bureau data.

On a per-capita basis, there was one government worker for every 16 residents in New York, one for every 17 in New Jersey and one for every 19 in Connecticut.

E.J. McMahon, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said the latest figures reflect retrenchments achieved by the Pataki administration following a burst of hiring under his predecessor, Mario Cuomo.

“It’s largely because Pataki reduced and held down the head count,” said McMahon. “The payroll grew very bloated under Cuomo.”

Most of the new hires in New York over the last decade were teachers.

There were 327,557 elementary and secondary school teachers employed in 2006, up from 253,954 in 1995.

Andrew White, director of the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, said governments in New York have operated under a boom-and-bust cycle for decades.

“There’s always been this trend,” he said. “[Former Mayor Ed] Koch cut deeply when he came in, then [when times got better] grew the payroll like no one ever before him grew it.”

To be fair, White noted that Koch was grappling with the aftermath of the fiscal crisis of the late 1970s and many of those entering the government in the 1980s were teachers.

“Spending was constricted under [Mayor David] Dinkins,” added White. “It tightened when [Rudy] Giuliani came in, but then [later under Giuliani] there was a big increase. [Mayor] Bloomberg has definitely kept the cap.”

White also pointed out that the bureau’s figures don’t include services provided by vendors, such as the nonprofit agencies that run many of the homeless shelters under contract with the city.

“It’s included in the expense budget, but they’re not on the payroll,” said White.

John Tirinzonie, the Connecticut labor commissioner, urged those looking at his state’s figures on the bureau’s Web site to do so with caution.

He said different counting methods have made it hard to pin down employment numbers in the past.

For example, thousands of croupiers, cocktail waitresses and others in the gaming industry, which is operated by native Americans, are classified as government employees, he said.

“If you exclude the casinos, local government employment is in line much more with other governments,” he said.

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