January 15, 2008

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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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is anyone realllly surprised to see the education dept. numbers have risen ??

Another fine example of over-paid and under-worked ...

The major portion of the budget gets wasted by those leaches .

Anonymous said...

And boys and girls we are paying for this.

Our City government always seem to do less and less with more and more.

Anonymous said...

Steve, this is a nice article about City employment. It would be even better if you gave the history and the end result as an example: the Park Dept lost 3 budgeted positions in 1992 and 2 out of the 3 have still not been filled to this date. If you calculate the number of man hours lost because those positions were not filled, it would help to explain the condition of our parks. The same could be applied to public works.

Anonymous said...

Re: Posts 2:31 PM and 6:20 AM

Great ideas!!! Let's fire all the teachers, send the children home and then we can build prisons.

Anonymous said...

8:14
I do beleive that Collins article points out that the Park Department staff went down by four (4) since 1998.

Yes since 1998!

Anonymous said...

poster 1244 you and steve should do your homework

Anonymous said...

Major cuts in the work force happened during the storz admin. in 1992 There were cuts that started in the pw dept.in 1998 do to automation.

Anonymous said...

And Nicastro and Couture never replaced these positions so that THEY could keep taxes down even when times were good.

Anonymous said...

Great ideas!!! Let's fire all the teachers, send the children home and then we can build prisons.

January 16, 2008 11:59 AM

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Is this a suggestion for the Mall Site ??

Anonymous said...

"the Park Dept lost 3 budgeted positions in 1992 and 2 out of the 3 have still not been filled to this date."

If only we had a Park Board with the [courage] to order Ed Swicklas to fill those positions, instead of him letting him get away with looking like a hero to the Board of Finance.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the city should be looking at doing what the State does, instead of hiring more people, pay overtime to the employees you currently have only when you need them. The State has learned as has private busines that its much more cost effective than paying for new employee. This would include, salary, training, outfitting, medicals costs, continuing updating training. Now theres the extra costs.
Lets look at less hiring and paying overtime when we need the employees, not just have one full time when there not needed.