Comparative Public Education Finances in FY 2000 and FY 2020: A Brief Review

As everyone who has gotten their information from New York’s local media over the past 20 years is aware, the New York City schools and its unionized teachers owe the children of New York City nothing, because the schools are underfunded and understaffed, and teachers unsupported by the rest of us, leading to large class sizes and teachers leaving for better jobs.  There is a constant stream of press releases to this effect, and no elected official seeking to maintain perpetual incumbency dares to contradict it.   And those seeking to advocate for more school funding or better conditions for teachers elsewhere would prefer that the New York City public schools not be discussed at all.

So, it has been left to this unpaid avocational blogger to tabulate and publish the readily available data released by the Census Bureau each year on how much New York City schools actually spend, compared with other places and with the past.  Since others are paid to not make this information available.

The past two years, years of pandemic, have been unusual and unrepresentative, and perhaps not relevant to any discussion of choices that have been made.  Therefore, I’m not going to go into the kind of detailed multi-post comparisons I did last year based on FY 2019 data, and two years before that based on FY 2017 data.  But perhaps a simple FY 2020 to FY 2000 comparison will be easier to digest.  A discussion of seven nine charts (sorry, can’t help myself), a correlation analysis, and spreadsheets with data for every school district in New York and New Jersey for FY 2020 and for FY 2000 (adjusted for inflation into $2020) follow.

Home Health Care and Local Government — A Growing Burden on NYC’s Serfs

Not long ago, I read about therapists getting arrested for stealing from programs for developmentally disadvantaged children, overbilling and not providing the services for which they had been paid.

https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/9-nyc-therapists-stole-usd3-3m-from-child-development-program

While I can’t find it now, I distinctly remember one of the articles saying that the crew had paused their scheme for a while in 2014, after another group had been caught doing the same thing.  Were the federal authorities really going to do something about this?  (They don’t have to worry about the state authorities, as NY state politicians are pro-fraud at the expense of the serfs, in exchange for political support).  After a year or two, the scammers decided the answer was no and resumed their criminal activities.

Meanwhile, the federal government was also investigating home health agencies for defrauding Medicaid.  The investigation took place in 2020, and ended late that year.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/10-defendants-arrested-home-health-aide-fraud-scheme

“Money that’s earmarked for Medicaid-approved services, and fraudulently paid out to those who don’t render these services, is a crime that’s ultimately paid for by taxpayers themselves. In this case, as we allege, there were even patients involved in the kickback scheme who were willing to play along with the no-show scam in order to earn a few extra bucks. With a nearly $5 billion increase in managed long-term care plan spending recorded over a recent six-year period, the money paid out to those charged today is no drop in the bucket.”

So, was there a pause in New York City’s stunning home health care boom?  And did that pause subsequently end?

New York City Local Government Employment and Payroll: Could That Have Actually Happened?

Over the past few years, and especially during the pandemic, we have heard the same thing over and over again.  New York City public agencies and public contractors can’t possibly provide New Yorkers with decent public services because they are understaffed, underpaid, underappreciated.  And city residents are undertaxed.  You heard it from the cops as crime jumped during the pandemic, and from the teachers who needed more staff for hybrid learning – and now need even more without hybrid learning.  You hear it from the Department of Corrections, the judges, the public defenders and DAs.   You hear it over and over, and rarely does anyone threaten their own career by objecting.  Cheated out of $billions!

So I was shocked to learn that according to Employment and Wages data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 2016 to 2020 New York City local government employment increased by 36,627 (8.1%) while local government employment in the rest of New York State decreased by 35,991 (6.2%).  That New York City local government payroll increased by fully 44.1% in four years!!!  Compared with an increase of 7.8% for the rest of the state.  I checked this against data reported to the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau.  This source reports a mere 7.5% increase in “full time equivalent” employment (full time plus part timers converted to a smaller number of full timers based on hours worked), compared with a 1.1% increase for the U.S.  March local government payroll, according to this source, increased 22.0% for NYC, and 10.8% for the rest of the state.  Despite these differences NYC local government payroll, as measured by the two sources, ended up in about the same place — $40.4 billion for annual payroll based on employment and wages, and $38.8 billion for the monthly Census Bureau data multiplied by 12.  Which makes sense due to raises that might have occurred during the year, and seasonal employment in the summer.

All this makes me wonder – just what have two politicians seeking higher office with public employee union support:  Mayor Comptroller Scott Stringer, and President Governor Mayor Bill DeBlasio, been doing?

Graphic Summary: 2017 Census of Governments, Employment and Payroll

Back in late 2019, I published a tabulation of data from the employment and payroll phase of the 2017 Census of Governments.  The data included full-time equivalent (full time workers plus part time workers converted into full time workers based on hours worked) state and local government employment, by function (police, parks, schools), per 100,000 residents of each area.  The population data was taken from Local Area Personal Income spreadsheets from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  For the population of the rural areas of New York State as a whole, I subtracted New York City, the Downstate Suburbs, and the Upstate Urban Counties from the state total.  All this sort of data usually gets revised as new information becomes available.  But when the new population data was released, soon after I had completed the entire effort with spreadsheets, tables, charts and posts, what I found was a shock.

https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/the-upstate-ny-rural-population-boom/

Somehow the population data for New York City had been altered – and inflated, thus reducing apparent NYC government employment per 100,000 residents. This wasn’t the usual correction. It turns out that in the old data, all the state’s counties combined didn’t add to the New York State total! Since I had gotten the population for the rural Rest of New York State by subtraction, the population of that region was underestimated by a significant percent, causing the region’s population losses, and its government employment per 100,000 residents, to be exaggerated.

I immediately published revised versions of the large spreadsheets with data for all government functions.  And now, I have gone back and altered the spreadsheets on individual government functions, the tables, the charts, and the posts on those functions, as well. The changes aren’t great enough to alter any conclusions.  I changed many numbers, in the tables, charts and text, but very few words.  Right is right, however, and the data linked here has now been fixed for that BEA error.

https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/the-latest-public-finance-spreadsheets/

Having made that effort, I have decided to publish a graphic summary of the employment and payroll phase of the 2017 Census of Governments, along with links back to the more detailed (and now corrected) posts.

Current Employment Survey Data for 2020: New York City Reduced our Public Services, but Annual Average Local Government Employment Barely Fell – while the Home Health Care Boom Stalled

As noted in my prior post, the release of rebenchmarked annual average Current Employment Survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that NYC lost the staggering total of 517,500 private wage and salary jobs from 2019 to 2020, by far the most since at least 1950 and probably the most ever.   On a percentage basis only Hawaii fared worse among U.S. areas of significant size.

https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2021/03/21/rebenchmarked-current-employment-survey-data-for-2020-new-york-city-was-clobbered-last-year-but-the-long-term-data-is-still-very-positive/

More recent data is even worse.  The monthly e-mail from the New York State Department of Labor shows a decrease of 626,800 private sector wage and salary jobs (15.3%) in NYC from February 2020, before the shutdowns, to February 2021.

The annual average data shows that while the sectors that were shut down suffered the steepest job losses, there were significant decreases across all sectors – even health care.  And yet annual average New York City local government employment was just 1,400 (0.3%) lower in 2020 than it had been in 2019.  For state and local government combined the decrease was just 1,600 (0.3%).

Measured from February 2020 to February 2021, the NYC local government employment is down just 4,200 (0.8%), with a decrease of just 600 (0.4%) for elementary and secondary schools – despite falling enrollment.  And Mayor DeBlasio has cut deals with the unions to guarantee no layoffs until half a year into the next Mayor’s term, regardless of circumstances or consequences.

Annual Average CES Employment Data for 2019: Before the Coronavirus New York Had A Growing Budget Crisis Despite A Massive Boom

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released rebenchmarked Current Employment Survey data, with 2019 annual average data (the average of all 12 months), last week.  While it seems as if it were ancient history, it is worth looking at this data now, because it shows how New York State benefitted from a massive employment boom from the peak of the prior economic upturn in 2008 to what seems certain to be the peak of the expansion that just ended in 2019.  An employment boom that dwarfed the increase from 2000 to 2008, and exceeded the U.S. average in percent gains, even though New York is a slow population growth state.  A boom that was concentrated in New York City.

And yet by the end of 2019 the City of New York, the State of New York, and the MTA were already facing budget crises.  Service cuts, tax increases, fee increases and deferred maintenance to the point of a future drastic infrastructure decline were already on the table.  And now, no doubt our elected officials and the special interests they represent will use the coronavirus and an excuse for all of the above.  They should not be allowed to get away with it.  Just as the business crisis was caused not by the virus, but rather by all the debts businesses piled up to pump up stock prices and executive pay, as everyone across the ideological spectrum seems to be saying (the subject of my prior post).  So the fiscal crisis was coming one way or the other, due to similar heists over the past 25 years.

The Upstate NY Rural Population Boom?

Last August I downloaded population and earnings data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, from its Local Area Personal Income series, to use in my compilation of state and local government employment per 100,000 people.  The data was for 1997, 2007, and 2017.  As always I divided the state into four regions.  New York City, whose population I got by adding up the five boroughs. The Downstate Suburbs, which I got by adding up Nassau, Putman, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester Counties.  The Upstate Urban Counties, the sum of Albany, Broome, Dutchess, Erie, Monroe, Niagara, Oneida, Onondaga, Orange, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady Counties.  And the rural and small Rest of New York State, which I got by subtracting the other three areas from the state total. The data showed a big population drop for this part of the state from 2007 to 2017 – and a thus huge increase in local government employment per 100,000 people.

Local Area Personal Income data has been updated to 2018 recently.

https://www.bea.gov/data/income-saving/personal-income-county-metro-and-other-areas

And I started downloading it for possible use in another analysis.  New York State’s 2017 population was exactly the same as the estimate released a year earlier.  But New York City’s 2017 population was slashed by 184,427 (2.1%), with smaller decreases for the Downstate Suburbs and Upstate Urban Counties.    Which means that since the Rest of New York State was obtained by subtraction, its population 2017 had soared by 247,319, a full 10.3% increase!  Despite the fact that the 2017 population estimate for virtually every individual county in the Rest of New York State has gone down!  It isn’t a surprise that the numbers are different.  Numbers are revised all the time based on new information.  But changes of this magnitude, despite NO change in the state total?

The best case scenario is a screw up.  Which is pretty much what I believe about next year’s 2020 Census of Population.

Bureaucracy: 2017 Census of Governments Employment & Payroll Data

This post will complete my series on different government functions based on employment and payroll data from the Census of Governments, for March 2017 and previous years. It includes data for the kind of general government and legal workers one might generally expect to find hanging around in city and town halls, and county seats and courthouses, reviewing applications, keeping records, handling cases and doing inspections, rather than providing services.  At the local government level the functions included are, as delineated by the U.S. Census Bureau, Health, Financial Administration, Other Local Government Administration, Judicial and Legal, and Other and Unallocable. At the state level there are two additional functions:  Social Insurance Administration, basically state Departments of Labor, and “Other Education,” which includes oversight agencies such as the New York State Department of Education and Board of Regents.

For decades I’ve been making the case that for public employment and expenditures alike there is not much to see here. New York State is about average when you add everything up, and no part of the state is really out of line. Today, however, things have changed enough in one part of the state that this time around I don’t feel that to be true anymore.

Public Amenities: Census of Governments Employment & Payroll for 2017

This post is about government functions I refer to as public amenities:  parks, recreation, culture, and libraries. Just because they are amenities doesn’t mean they are unimportant, although they are often treated that way in a budget crisis.  For the young and old, in fact, the availability of these shared, social spaces is one of the most important reasons to live in central cities. In modern suburbs people shuffle between detached homes and workplaces, and generally only interact with people they don’t already know in places that have significant admission fees. In New York City you can be with people, get entertained, and get exercise without spending much of anything.

Taxpaying workers who don’t have children in public schools, don’t commit crimes, and aren’t on Medicaid, are cash cows for the City and State of New York. These public amenities, along with streets, mass transit and garbage pick up, are really all they get for the taxes they pay, since the cost of water and sewer service is funded by charges.  These are things that benefit everyone, but given the special interest-driven politics of state and local government here, the goal is always to take from everyone and give it to the “special people.”  So benefitting everyone is the same as benefitting no one in particular who actually matters.  Fortunately, Census of Governments employment and payroll data shows that as of March 2017 New York City’s agencies in these functions were not understaffed (unlike in the past for parks), and their workers were not underpaid. We’ll see what happens when the tax dollars aren’t gushing in from yet another Wall Street and real estate bubble, as they have been.

Infrastructure: Census of Governments Employment and Payroll Data for 2017

This series of posts based on Census of Governments state and local government employment and payroll data for March 2017 (and 2007 and 1997) continues with a post on infrastructure functions:  highways and streets, mass transit, air transportation, water transportation, government-run electric and gas utilities, water supply, sewerage, and solid waste management.  Along with related private sector activity.  When I joined New York City Transit out of graduate school in 1986, I was told it was the largest industrial/blue collar employer in New York City.  It probably still is, with the other functions described adding as many blue collar jobs, and jobs with contractors many more.

In the past 10 years or so, subway riders have experienced a drastic decrease in their quality of life despite rising fares, relative to the very low inflation of the period.  This is something I have attributed to costs from the past – the big pension increase in 2000, with huge costs deferred until later, and decades of zero state and city funding for the MTA capital plan, with money borrowed instead.  But after reviewing the data for these functions, I have begun to wonder if even worse is coming. And not just at the MTA. But we will have water!