HOW MANY CITY EMPLOYEES IN TEXAS?
In recent months, an Austin-based interest group has attempted to make the argument that the public sector in Texas is made up of profligate governments (including municipal governments) that employ an inordinately large number of Texas, thus proving…well, we’re not sure what that would prove, even if it were true.
The accompanying chart shows that when employment in public education is excluded, public sector employment in Texas is less than the national average by significant margins. (We’re not education experts, and cannot explain the relatively high level of public education employment.)
| Government Employment Per 10,000 Population, 2002 | ||
| Including Education | Excluding Education | |
| State and Local Governments, Entire U.S. | 541.0 | 256.3 |
| State and Local Governments, Texas | 573.4 | 236.5 |
| State Government, Entire U.S. | 146.4 | 88.9 |
| State Government, Texas | 123.8 | 78.3 |
| Local Governments, Entire U.S. | 394.6 | 167.4 |
| Local Governments, Texas | 449.6 | 158.2 |
Developing meaningful and accurate comparisons of city employment on a state-by-state basis is very difficult. Some states (particularly Northeastern and Midwestern states) have townships, which provide some municipal services; Texas has no townships. In some states, cities operate public schools; not so in Texas.
Nonetheless, city employment data developed by the U.S. Census Bureau for 2002 is useful. In that year, 71 of the largest cities in Texas had 87,642 employees (excluding employees of municipal electric utilities, which not all cities have). These numbers indicate that municipal employment across the state is roughly 107 employees per 10,000 population, less than 19 percent of total state/local government employment in Texas.