Boston Employee Levels Increase for Second Year

Boston Employee Levels Increase for Second Year Growth contained primarily to Schools and Public Safety

The Research Bureau released a Special Report today, Boston Employee Levels Increase for Second Year, which showed that the number of Boston city-funded employees increased by 809 or 5.0% over the past two years (January 2012 to January 2014).  In this past year from January 2013 to January 2014, city-funded positions increased by 450 or 2.7% to 16,982.  Payroll reductions in 2009, 2010 and 2011 due to the economic downturn resulted in a net five-year employee decrease of 296 or 1.7%. Additionally, in the first five months of the Walsh Administration (January 2014 to June 2014), employee levels decreased by 118, due mainly to the restructuring of services in the Boston Public Schools and the timing of public safety classes and retirements. Other key highlights of the report include: Spending for employee salaries and benefits totaled $1.8 billion or 67.9% of the $2.6 billion of operating expenditures in fiscal 2014.  Over the past five years, spending for employees increased by $206.7 million or 13%.  Salaries represented 57.3% of that increase and benefits 42.7%.   During the past five years, the three largest city departments, School, Police and Fire, which represented 77.8% of the total city-funded workforce in January 2014, accounted for only 17.9% of the 118 employee reduction.  While employee cuts occurred in both the Police (-4.0%) and Fire (-1.5%) Departments, the School Department added 92 employees during this period, an increase of 1.1%.  The 44 city departments, other than the big three, comprise 22% of the city-funded payroll as of January 2014 but accounted for 82.1% of the total five-year employee reduction.  These departments are gradually experiencing an overall decrease in their share of the total workforce. Positions funded by federal and state grants decreased by 123 to 1,315 as of January 2014, a trend that is expected to continue. As the Walsh Administration begins to prepare its first complete operating budget for fiscal 2016, it will need to balance the provision for basic city services with its interest in implementing or expanding initiatives it favors as well as recommendations from various audits or studies it requested.  A balanced budget remains a challenge with solid personnel management being critical to achieving success.