Dakota Beacon

STATE EMPLOYEE GROWTH 3 TIMES POPULATION GROWTH – IS IT TIME TO ACT?
By Lynn Bergman

 
Historic number of North Dakota Full Time Equivalent (FTE) Positions (NOT including employees of the North Dakota University System) are from page 12 of the 2010 Legislator’s Pocket Guide to North Dakota Budget, Performance, and Statistics published by the North Dakota Legislative Council. Population figures are from the ND State Data Center* (2003) and page 1 of the 2010 Legislator’s Pocket Guide (2005, 2007, 2009).

* http://www.ndsu.edu/sdc/data/populationtrends.htm

Year     North Dakota     North Dakota     Percentage

            Population         FTEs                 (FTE / Pop)

2003     633,051             8,386.05            1.32%

2005     635,365             8,437.68            1.33%

2007     638,202             8,828.17            1.38%

2009     646,844             8,969.76            1.39%

The number of state employees (except NDUS employees) grew 6.96% from 2003 to 2009. During the same time frame, population grew by 2.18%.

Number of state employees is growing over three times (3.2 x) population growth.

If this trend continues, FTEs in 2021 will be 10,262, an added increase of 14.4%.

Is it time to limit General Fund FTEs to 1.4% of Population?

Or should we wait until such time as we cannot afford the number of state employees we have, causing painful layoffs?

The limitation to 1.4% of population must be the only limit imposed. Staying under the limit would become the responsibility of the legislature to design and the Governor to administer. It would be very unwise to micromanage the distribution of state employees among the various agencies and departments of state government by statute. But the limitation on the total number of employees is something that will not happen unless it is written into law. Discipline on the part of the legislature and governor is not something that taxpayers can rely on, based upon recent history.