Policies to boost innovation, competitiveness and job creation are top priorities for the nation's governors. State economic development agencies play a large role in making and implementing those policies and, accordingly, how states will rebound from the recession that ended in 2009. State leaders seeking to lay the foundation for renewed economic prosperity should try to ensure that such agencies function as effectively and efficiently as possible, so that the economic recovery brings with it strong growth and high-paying jobs.
The fact that states are now facing daunting economic challenges makes it easier to muster broad support for transforming their economic development agencies. Governors have a unique opportunity to review the economic landscape and to propose critical changes that would not have been feasible in the past. Within the past two years, at least 12 states have created new entities focused on economic development or have consolidated existing agencies to streamline their approach to economic development.
]]>At the August 30th hearing of the Legislative Subcommittee on Employee Relations, Minnesota Management & Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter discussed two recent reports about state government staffing levels in Minnesota. He began with, "The workforce is changing. The demographic changes that we are experiencing are real and profound, and the state as an employer cannot assume the workforce it has had in the past, the quality workforce and the ability to affect the policies it wishes, we cannot assume that the capacity will be there in the future. It has to consider very strongly how it recruits, retains, and develops employees going into the future, and that this is a key issue for the state going forward." The reports he discussed:
• Full-Time Equivalent Executive Branch Employees . Minnesota Management & Budget, 2012. (Mandated by: 2011 Minn. Laws 1st Spl. Sess. Chap. 10 Art. 3 Sec. 46)
• State of Minnesota Workforce Report . Minnesota Management & Budget, 2011.
Additional articles and databases give information on state and local government employment and pay.
• " Debating Public vs. Private: While the Public Sector is the Second-Largest Employer in Minnesota, State and Local Government Employment as a Percentage of All Jobs Here Has Been Shrinking Since 1976," Minnesota Economic Trends, December 2011.
• " Good-bye Government Jobs," State Legislatures, July/August 2011. The article includes links to studies that conclude public sector workers are overpaid and those that say public sector workers are underpaid.
• Minnesota Local Government Salary and Benefits Survey . League of Minnesota Cities. (The Library pays for online access to this database for legislators and legislative staff.)
• Minnesota Occupation Employment Statistics Data. This database, maintained by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, includes private sector data and provides employment and salary statistics for broad occupational categories in Minnesota.
• State Government Employment and Pay Data. Governing Magazine compiled 2010 and 2011 employment and pay data by job type for all state governments.
With some governments in their fourth year of pay and hiring freezes, according to surveys by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence (SLGE), local governments are facing a wide range of work -force challenges. Their workforce is aging and many still have a pay freeze and are adjusting retirement and health care benefits, according to SLGE's 2012 survey report: State and Local Government Workforce: 2012 Trends. At the same time, the pace of layoffs has slowed, with 28 percent reporting layoffs this year compared with 43 percent in 2009.
The top workforce issue cited by survey respondents in 2012 is the public perception of government workers. Issues that continue to rank as most important are: retaining staff for core services, addressing employee morale and workload problems, staff development, and reducing employee health care costs.
]]>A new report from IHS Global Insights shows that any near-term economic recovery in the US isn't likely to include adding jobs to state and local governments. The data tracks with the the National League of Cities budget report, CivSource reported on last month which shows that cities and states are still making layoffs. Some areas are relying on part-time workers to fill the gaps.
According to the economic forecast from IHS, state and local government workers shouldn't expect to see their ranks hit pre-recession levels until 2017. Total employment by states and cities could grow 3.2 percent to 19.9 million in 2017 from 19.3 million in 2012 - an addition of 620,000 jobs, IHS Global Insight said.
]]>From the press release:
The U.S. Census Bureau today released preliminary counts of local governments as the first component of the 2012 Census of Governments. In 2012, 89,004 local governments existed in the United States, down from 89,476 in the last census of governments conducted in 2007...
...Conducted every five years (for years ending in "2" and "7"), the census of governments provides the only uniform source of statistics for all of the nation's state and local governments. These statistics allow for in-depth trend analysis of all individual governments and provide a complete, comprehensive and authoritative benchmark of state and local government activity.
The census of governments measures three components: organization, employment and finance. These components provide statistics on the number of governments that exist, the services they provide, the number of their employees and their financial activity. In addition to the information provided for states, cities, counties and townships, the census of governments also provides information on special districts and school districts.
Among the key findings in the 2012 Census of Governments preliminary counts:
- Illinois leads the nation with 6,968 local governments -- approximately 2,000 more
- Hawaii has 21 local governments, the fewest of any state.
- Texas remains first in the nation with the most independent school districts at 1,079. Closely behind is California, with 1,025 independent school districts.
- Seventeen states had more special districts compared with 2007, and 29 had fewer. Five states (including the District of Columbia) had no change.
- Ten states had fewer townships because of mergers and consolidations. Kansas decreased the most, moving from 1,353 in 2007 to 1,268 in 2012, a decrease of 85.
While Open States is in beta this site is only available for Alaska, Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.
We gather legislative data from all 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, and then make it available in a common format via our API and bulk downloads.
]]>From the press release:
In March 2011, there were 16.4 million full-time equivalent employees working in state and local governments in the U.S., down 1.4 percent from 2010. According to estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau, the majority of these employees (8.9 million) worked in education, followed by those working in hospitals (964,381), police protection (923,951) and corrections (717,940).
These estimates come from the 2011 Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll. The survey shows totals for state and local government full-time and part-time employment and details employment by government function at the national and state level. To arrive at the full-time equivalent employee calculation, the number of full-time employees is added to the number of hours worked by part-time employees divided by the standard number of hours for a full-time employee.
]]>From the summary:
Paul Clement, who argued the Affordable Care Act case on behalf of the states before the Supreme Court, and Patricia Millett, who argued three cases before the Court this term impacting state or local government, discussed the practical implications of the most important cases affecting state and local government from the Supreme Court's 2011 term. The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) organized this webinar for Big Seven members, and Lisa Soronen, Executive Director of the SLLC, moderated the discussion.
The state will begin a pilot program aimed at providing more child care in it's booming western oil region.
...States are required to balance their budgets, and funding those jobs and services takes an increasing amount of money, as everything from health care costs to fuel prices rise. With the Tea Party wave taking hold in state legislatures in 2010 with promises to cut or maintain current taxes, states across the country have had to find a way to shrink the government as well....
]]>From the summary:
This briefing paper begins by providing background on the public sector's commitment to equal opportunity and affirmative action in employment, and then explores the degree to which women and African Americans are overrepresented in state and local government jobs. It next turns to a discussion of how state and local public-sector workers have significantly higher levels of education than their private-sector peers, yet are consistently underpaid relative to similar private-sector workers. Then, it compares racial- and gender-based wage disparities in the state and local public sectors and the private sector. The briefing paper next explains the disproportionate impact of state and local public-sector job cuts on women and African Americans, and concludes by contrasting the private sector's slow jobs recovery with continued employment declines in the public sector.
Key findings include:
- Historically, the state and local public sectors have provided more equitable opportunities for women and people of color. As a result, women and African Americans constitute a disproportionately large share of the state and local public-sector workforce.
- Overall, the wage gap across genders is similar in the state and local public sectors and in the private sector. However, it is smaller for highly educated women employed in state and local government.
- State and local public-sector workers of color face smaller wage disparities across racial lines, and at some levels of education actually enjoy a wage premium over similarly educated white workers.
- The disproportionate share of women and African Americans working in state and local government has translated into higher rates of job loss for both groups in these sectors.
- Job losses in the state and local public sectors stand in contrast to the jobs recovery in the private sector.
See also:
Press release
From the press release:
A new survey by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence finds that more than half of state and local governments still have a pay freeze and are adjusting retirement and health care benefits. At the same time, the pace of layoffs has slowed with 28 percent reporting layoffs this year compared with 40 percent last year.
State and Local Government Workforce: 2012 Trends is a follow-up to three previous studies that have looked at questions related to the size of the workforce, compensation and benefits, and employees' plans for retirement.
The top workforce issue cited in 2012 is the public perception of government workers. Issues that continue to rank as most important are retaining staff for core services, addressing employee morale and workload problems, staff development, and reducing employee health care costs.
Workforce changes include:
- Employees accelerating their plans for retirement (22 percent)
- Workforce has shrunk since the 2008 economic downturn (68 percent)
- Pay freezes (51 percent)
- Hiring freezes (42 percent)
- Layoffs (28 percent)
In the area of health care:
- Shifted more health care costs to employees (51 percent, down from 72 percent last year)
- Shifted more health care costs to retirees (11 percent, down from 23 percent)
- Created wellness programs (26 percent, down from 33 percent)
In the area of pensions:
- Raised employee contributions to pension plans for current workers (24 percent, up from 22 percent last year)
- Increased employee contributions for new hires (27 percent, up from 23 percent last year)
See also:
summary
...Of the eleven states in which Republicans came into power in 2010 - Alabama, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - five were among the seven states that lost more than 2.5 percent of their workforce from December 2010 to December 2011....Overall, these 11 states were responsible for 40 percent of the total state and local public sector job losses in 2011. Add to these Texas, which because of its large size is responsible for 31 percent of the total at the state and local level. Taken together, these 12 red states drove over 70 percent of the total losses....
Related:
The GOP's State Project of Slashing the Public Workforce
Source: Bryce Covert, Mike Konczal, Roosevelt Institute, March 27th, 2012
From the summary:
As the economic recession deepens, the nation's local governments have moved beyond a "business as usual" approach to cutting costs and improving efficiency. The premise for this paper is that America's cities, towns, and counties are currently in the process of reinventing themselves now that the easy measures have been adopted. This paper examines the scope of strategies considered by local governments using keywords from daily ICMA News Briefings from April 15, 2009 to April 15, 2011. According to the results of the research:
- The majority of proposals were aimed at cutting expenditures rather than raising revenue.
- Elected officials are examining the provision of core local services, but remain reluctant to enter into collaborative arrangements with other jurisdictions or private service providers.
- Most of the responses collected were conventional and incremental as opposed to bolder, innovative strategies, though this could change in the coming years.