Eliot Spitzer’s first year as governor of New York has seen the state workforce grow to its highest level since Mario Cuomo’s last year as governor, according to payroll data from the state Comptroller’s Office.
Nine months after Spitzer’s inauguration, the state payroll totaled 235,014 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, an increase of 3,158 over the same period in 2006. This is the largest third-quarter count of state workers since 1994, when there were 242,271 positions on an FTE basis.
With the average full-time state employee costing roughly $82,677 in salary and benefits, the larger workforce will only add to the challenge the governor faces in closing a projected $4.3 billion budget shortfall in fiscal 2008-09.
The financial burden will be compounded by forthcoming collective bargaining agreements, based on the relatively generous pattern Spitzer has just established with the state’s largest union. The growth in the payroll as measured by the comptroller’s headcount is generally consistent with plans unveiled in Governor Spitzer’s first budget, which calls for adding a total of 3,903 employees during the fiscal year ending next March 31.
You may also like
Benchmarking New York 2021
To help New Yorkers compare certain basic fiscal measures for local governments, the Empire Center has calculated effective property tax rates and per-capita values for the spending, debt and tax levels throughout the state. Read More
What They Make
Local government is a labor-intensive business, and employee compensation is the single biggest element of most municipal budgets. Read More
Sticker Shock: The Impact of a ‘Single-Payer’ Health Plan on New York Taxes
Proponents of “single payer” health care are pushing New Yorkers to take a multi-billion-dollar leap of faith. Read More
Benchmarking New York
New York State residents pay some of the highest local taxes in the nation. Read More
Tiering Up
New York taxpayers have been hit with enormous increases in pension costs for state and local government employees over the past 20 years. From less than $1 billion in 2000, combined annual employer contributions to the Empire State’s public pension funds escalated to nearly $10 billion by 2010, peaking at nearly $17 billion in 2015. Contributions have leveled off at roughly $16 billion in recent years—but under lenient government accounting standards, even that figure conceals the full long-term cost of generous, locked-in pension benefits for generations of retired government employees. Read More
Medicaid’s Metamorphosis
A new Empire Center report reveals that the New York Medicaid program now covers more individuals above the poverty line than below it. Read More
Perverse Incentives, High Costs and Poor Outcomes
The state’s current and projected fiscal condition make this an appropriate time to examine what drives high special education spending in New York, how it’s serving children and how it can be improved. Read More
Benchmarking New York
New York State residents pay some of the highest local taxes in the nation. To help New Yorkers compare some of the basic fiscal measures for local governments, the Empire Center for Public Policy continues to calculate effective property tax rates and per-capita values for the spending, debt and tax levels of counties, cities, towns, villages and school districts throughout the state, excluding only New York City. Read More