|
Data sources are described in the section Data Sources and Downloads.
Staff expenses are the largest expense item in the County's Operations by far - about 75% of operational spending (County Budget). This is up from about 65% a decade ago. Total staff expenses result first from the size of the staff and second from the salaries and rates of benefits and associated expenses per staff member. Both numbers and payrolls grew substantially over these 6 years.
The County rapidly expanded its workforce from 1997 thru 2002 - 413 "funded positions" were added, a 39% increase (County Budget). The average annual growth of staff in those 5 years was nearly 9%. According to the State, Mendocino County's population was growing at less than 1% a year during this time. (County Population Estimates) The County increased its workforce 10 times faster than the underlying growth of the number of County residents over this period.
The Center for Government Analysis produced An Analysis of Government Payroll and Employment for Counties in California in October 2004. This report compares California counties on both payrolls and numbers of employees per capita for County residents in terms of changes from 1997 through 2002 – through a remarkable coincidence these are precisely the years in which the County of Mendocino was taking the actions that we believe led to the very high debt levels per capita.
Percentage Change in County Staff per Resident
All California Counties (Other Than San Francisco)
1997 – 2002
This report shows that the County of Mendocino was 5th out of 57 counties in increasing numbers of employees per capita. The County's staff per capita increased 30.9% during these years, 2.5 times faster than the average growth rate for California Counties of 12.2%. (Two counties, Inyo and Imperial, more than doubled their county staffs per capita during those 5 years, whereas 12 counties actually reduced theirs, with Plumas, Glenn and Mariposa cutting their numbers of county staff per capita by more than 25%.)
For the most part you can't meaningfully compare the County of Mendocino to other counties by simply comparing County data on a per capita basis. Most Counties have more population in incorporated cities. Only about 1 in 5 Counties have more people in unincorporated parts of the county – Mendocino is one of those. The number of County employees and payroll per capita should be expected to be higher for counties like Mendocino than for most counties in which a far higher percentage of residents are served by cities. However, while Mendocino County can be fairly expected to have more employees per capita than a more urbanized county with the same population, why would it be expected to increase the numbers and payroll of employees faster than other counties? In other words, analyzing the rate of change overcomes most of the statistical problems caused by the varying rural v. urban conditions of different counties.
However, to see where the County of Mendocino falls on a direct County Staff per resident basis, this graph was in the Center's report:
Number of County Staff Per 1000 Citizens
County of Mendocino – 10 Categories
2002
The blue bar on the graph shows the number of Full Time Equivalent employees per 1000 citizens for each category of employees. The yellow diamond shows the statewide average number of FTE employees per 1000 citizens for each category. In direct comparison with statewide averages –
- Our County had twice the state average of County employees per capita in Health, Welfare, Judicial/Legal, and Other Administration.
- We were significantly higher but not terribly so in Corrections & Police Officers.
- We had the average number of employees per cap in Financial Admin, Police-Other, Total Police and Parks and Rec.
- We were not significantly below average in any category.
Click to go to next page, Rapid Expansion of Average County Employee Salary and Benefits.
|
