City workforce rising while city population stagnates

Though the city’s population has remained about the same for the past decade, the number of city workers has gone up 8 percent since 1998.
But virtually the entire growth in the number of employees has come from the Board of Education, which employs 117 more people than it did a decade ago.
Other areas of city government that have seen significant growth are the Police Department and the library.
Overall, the city employed the equivalent of 1,561 full-time workers during the fiscal year that ended in the summer of 1998.
It now has the equivalent of 1,681 full-time employees on staff, according to a year-end fiscal report prepared by the comptroller’s office. The numbers were compiled by the city’s personnel office.
The biggest drop came in the Public Works Department, which had 160 workers a decade ago and gets by with 136 of them today.
The reason for the drop is mostly the shift from three-person garbage truck crews to automated pickups that require only a single driver to operate the mechanical arm that picks up rubbish barrels.
The Park Department has also seen its numbers dwindle, from 24 to 20, which amounts to a 17 percent reduction in its staff.
The Fire Department has had between 91 and 93 employees during the past decade. Most recently, it had 92.
The Water Department saw its workforce dwindle from 38 a decade ago to 35 today.
The library got along with 24 or 25 workers every year until 2006 when it added three people. It added another three in 2007.
The increase is related to the expansion of the Main Library on High Street, which added more space and created the opportunity to add new specialists, a move that city leaders supported.
The Police Department’s increase from 122 to 147 is only the beginning of its planned effort to bolster its ranks even further, adding two officers a year to the rolls for at least three more years. It hopes to keep beefing up for years to come.
School officials have added staff over the years to deal with rising numbers of students, but also to deliver more specialized help to struggling students who might otherwise be left behind.
Because the report counts full-time equivalents, there are actually more people employed than the numbers indicate. Two half-time staffers, for instance, would count only as one.
It's hard to say exactly what Bristol's population has done over the same decade, but between 1990 and 2000, it actually suffered a small decline, for the first time in its history.
It's probably up less than 2 percent since 1997, but we won't know for sure until the results of the 2010 Census come in.

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Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com