The September Current Employment Survey data from the New York State Department of Labor is out, and with the kids back in school and the schools staffed up we can now look back on the Pataki era in public employment in full. And here is something you won’t read in the New York Post or the New York Sun, that won’t be analyzed by the Manhattan Institute, and that won’t be brought up by Republican candidate for Governor John Faso. Nor will it be mentioned by the New York Times, analyzed by the Fiscal Policy Institute, or pointed to by Democratic candidate for Governor Eliot Spitzer. From September 1994 to September 2006, local government employment in the portion of New York State outside New York City rose by 93,600. This in the face of a much-discussed stagnation in population and private employment there. This includes a below-average gain of 2,300 from September 2005 to September 2006.
In New York City, September local government employment rose by 17,100 from 1994 to 2006, but this was merely a partial recovery from the 41,300 local government jobs lost from 1990 to 1994, leaving a net decline of 24,700 jobs from 1990 to 2006. New York City local government employment is up by 3,300 from September 2005 to September 2006, a very rare year-over-year increase. In the rest of New York State, September local government employment rose from 1990 to 1994 as well, by 14,700, and is up over 108,000 since 1990.
Most of the gain outside the city has been in the public schools, where the state aid formula, the STAR program, and Son of STAR (aka Bruno’s check) have diverted educational resources out of New York City. In the rest of New York State, public elementary and secondary school employment is up by 68,900 from September 1994 to September 2006, and by 75,300 since September 1990. In New York City, public school employment is up by 24,700 from 1994 to 2006, but as I wrote here http://www.r8ny.com/blog/larry_littlefield/educational_employment_boom_part_iii_of_iii.html that is mostly a partial offset to rising enrollment. Given a big loss in public school employment in the city from 1990 to 1994 (public school employment is up just 8,200 in NYC since 1990), and that rise of enrollment, the ratio of employees to students is lower now than it was 16 years ago. In the rest of the state, it is much, much higher.
For other local government employment, New York City was 7,600 lower in September 2006 than in September 1994, despite some recent gains. The rest of the state gained 24,700 jobs in other parts of local government during the period, despite some recent losses. This followed big losses in the city, and gains in the rest of the state, from 1990 to 1994 as well.
We’ve had the proverbial seven fat years and seven lean years since 1990 as far as the economy is concerned. But for public employment, the City of New York is much leaner. And local governments in the rest of the state are much fatter. While there has been a partial reversal for other types of local government in the most recent 12 months, but for the schools the pattern continues: New York City public school employment fell by 1,000 from September 2005 to September 2006, as the city reacts to falling enrollment and rising pension expenditures and tries to cut costs. In the rest of the state, public school enrollment is up by 4,900, as state money continues to pour in.
Of course public money has been spent in New York City, with much of it going to the influential private Health Care and Social Assistance sectors via Medicaid. New York City gained 108,600 jobs in these substantially government-funded sectors from September 1994 to September 2006. But the rest of the state is no piker in that category either, with a gain of 125,900 jobs in the period. The Pataki Administration did trim the much smaller number of state government employees, but here New York City was a full participant, accounting for 6,100 of the 15,900 job decline from 1994 to 2006 even though the city accounts for a small share of total state government employees.
I wish someone would write about this. I wish someone would ask Faso about Pataki’s 100,000. After all, according to the New York Times Faso “became head of the team that wrote Mr. Pataki’s first budget as governor, an austerity plan that is revered by Republicans far more than the 11 budgets that followed.” But that budget cut state education aid to New York City and generally dispensed austerity there, while increasing school aid to the rest of the state. More spending in the rest of the state followed. Would Faso say that state aid should be realigned, to force the rest of the state to go through the government downsizing New York City went through in the early 1990s, or the mid-1970s? I doubt it. What he has said is that no more money should go to the New York City schools, even if an order from the state’s highest court must be ignored. Meanwhile, school employment in the rest of the state should go up four percent per year (in the current low inflation environment, presumably to be adjusted upward if inflation rises), with a big increase in state aid to reduce property taxes given the high spending already in place.
The same pattern has been repeated at the federal level, with budget reductions for spending on the poor, minorities, immigrants and those living in older central cities more than balanced by higher spending elsewhere, with the added spending funded by debt instead of taxes. Is this not what Republicans stand for, regardless of what they say? If so, why would anyone in New York City, even a person who was willing to exchange lower taxes for fewer public services and social guarantees, vote for one? Why won’t the Democrats talk about the high level of employment growth outside New York City either?
It is worth noting that Pataki’s last state budget, after he issued his vetoes and refusals to implement certain parts of it, could have been his fairest. Not a budget I would have proposed, mind you, but fair. It is possible to be a fair conservative, if the same rules are applied to all. But there aren’t any fair conservatives in New York, and in the end almost all the deals were added back in, increasing school funding inequities and future fiscal problems. At least Pataki didn’t accept the latest pension enhancement, although there is still more than two months left in his term to reverse that. We can conclude, however, that there wasn’t a single budget in the past 12 years that was fair by any ideological standard, or any reasonable standard at all.