Patti Dozier/Times-EnterpriseSteve Sykes, city manager and utilities superintendent for the City of Thomasville, said there has been little growth in the workforce aside from public works and planning and taking vehicle fleet service back in-house.

VALDOSTA — Taxes. 

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to levy taxes to pay debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare.

The federal government gives states the power to valuate and tax property, and states have turned the collection of those levies over to city and county governments.

Since the Republic is self-governed, the idea behind local taxation is that the people who live in a city or county determine what level of services are desired and how much they are willing to pay for those services.

That’s the principle. 

Still, there is always a tug of war — the constant tension between people wanting lower taxes but more services.

The foundation of government services is manpower, the men and women who are listed on government payrolls — payrolls funded by taxpayer dollars — from the federal level all the way down to local counties and cities.

Communities with bigger populations will obviously have a larger government workforce and a larger payroll. Other factors also affect how much a government pays out, such as an area’s cost of living and a government’s need to offer competitive pay in order to get and retain employees.

But an easy way to fairly compare how much or how little local governments spend on their employees is looking at the percentage that payroll (salaries, wages and benefits) makes up a government’s total budget.

In the SunLight Project coverage area — Valdosta, Dalton, Thomasville, Milledgeville, Tifton and Moultrie, Ga., and Live Oak, Jasper and Mayo, Fla., along with the surrounding counties — the difference in payroll percentages is strikingly broad, ranging from a low 15 percent (Live Oak) to a high 69.8 percent (Dalton).

 

The Numbers, City by City

Dalton’s payroll percentage of almost 70 percent — the highest in the coverage area — represents the $23 million the city (population 34,000) spent on its 385 employees in the current yearly budget.

That number doesn’t even include the payroll for Dalton Utilities, which is owned by the city but operates as a separate entity and provides electricity, natural gas, water and wastewater services to the area.

Not far behind is Moultrie (population 14,300), which is currently spending 64.8 percent ($8.2 million) of the yearly budget on its 209 employees.

From there, the payroll percentages drop way down, with Milledgeville (population 18,900) spending 40 percent ($13.1 million) on 217 employees.

Thomasville, a similar city of 18,800 people, has a 35 percent ($14.1 million) payroll rate for 270 employees.

Thomasville is like Dalton in that its utility provider, Thomasville Utilities, acts as a separate entity from the rest of city government.

Valdosta (population 56,400) comes in at 36.2 percent ($30.9 million) for its 549 employees.

The city of Live Oak, Fla. (population 7,000) spends the least on its employees by far, shelling out 15 percent ($3.8 million) for 57 people.

The 2008 recession that ravaged the U.S. economy has played out in different ways when it comes to the size of local government.

Some cities were forced to shrink their workforce in the face of declining revenues. Others stayed the same. Some started spending even more on government employees.

Dalton went from spending 61.1 percent ($19 million) on payroll in 2008 to spending 69.8 percent currently. The city’s payroll costs are soon expected to top $24 million, an increase of about 26 percent from a decade ago.

Dalton Mayor Dennis Mock said a large part of that increase is due to the city’s efforts to make its pension plan fully funded, though he could not say exactly how much of the increase in wages and benefits has gone to the pension.

The city closed its pension plan to employees hired after July 1, 2002. Officials said that will reduce the city’s liability in decades to come, but in the short run, with no new employees paying into the plan, it costs the city more each year to fund.

While Dalton’s payroll payouts have increased in the past decade, its overall number of employees has dropped during the same period, shrinking from 444 in 2008 to its current group of 385 (a 13 percent decrease).

“I really do believe that shows that we are trying to make sure that we are providing only the services our citizens want and demand and doing that in the most efficient manner,” Mock said.

Starting in 2008, under then-mayor David Pennington, the city council made a concerted effort to streamline city services, combining its building inspection and zoning department with that of Whitfield County and cutting garbage pickup to once a week from twice a week.

While the county hasn’t been cutting as aggressively as it did then, Mock said council members have been careful about adding new positions.

Thomasville city government has added numbers in the past decade, going from 238 employees in 2007 to 270 in 2017.

The growth is primarily from an increase in the level of service for public works and planning and a switch from outsourced fleet service to internal staff, the city said.

But other than that, the city has seen little government upsizing in recent years, City Manager Steve Sykes said.

Police and fire departments have the same number of employees as they did a decade ago. The same is true for the city manager’s office, risk management, financial services and building, Sykes said.

In contrast, Valdosta has cut down on its government workforce in recent years, not only in total number of employees but also in payroll percentage.

The city has reduced its employee count significantly, going from 679 in 2009 to 549 in 2016.

The city has also gone from spending 40.5 percent ($33.7 million) of its budget on employees in 2009 to 36.2 percent (30.9 million) in 2016.

Instead of firing people, the city chose to cut several positions that were left vacant by people quitting or retiring. Instead of finding new people to fill the spots, the city eliminated the jobs altogether and transferred those duties to other positions.

City leaders got rid of spots they believed they could do without, such as assistant to the city manager, economic development coordinator, assistant city engineer and inspections director.

The city’s reduction comes on the tail-end of a 25 percent population increase from 2000-10, so even though the city grew in size, the number of government employees still decreased.

“It’s just logical that when you grow, you’ve got to add people, but what we’ve tried to do is work smarter and use technology in a lot of ways,” City Manager Larry Hanson said.

“We did not do furloughs. We did not eliminate positions with people in them. We really critically examined our organization and (asked) how can we operate more efficiently by changing job responsibilities, combining things, getting people trained in (more) areas.”

The loss of positions meant more work for the remaining employees to handle, but Hanson said they try to constantly evaluate and recalculate to keep workloads at a manageable level.

Even though the economy has started to turn around, Valdosta has not seen government revenues go up much. But adding more people to government payroll just for the sake of it is not really the city’s goal and doesn’t always solve problems, Assistant City Manager Mark Barber said.

“Most of the time, adding folks is not the solution,” he said.

Instead, the city is only looking to “right-size” its workforce, Hanson said.

Tifton (population 16,800) is another city that has cut its workforce in the last decade, and the drop has been drastic.

In 2007, the city had 301 employees, with salaries totaling $8.7 million. Now, the city’s government workforce is less than half that: 137 employees with salaries coming to $4.5 million.

The city managed the monumental reduction mainly by outsourcing utilities, maintenance, and public works to ESG, Inc., garbage collection to Golden Environmental and selling CityNet to PlantNet.

So the services still exist, but they are privatized instead of being handled by local government. 

Gary Kincade, a Tift County businessmen who has served on various government boards and commissions, said when it comes to the size and efficacy of local government, the question is if residents are lacking any services. Right now, he doesn’t feel they are. 

Live Oak, which has the lowest payroll percentage (15 percent) in the coverage area, needs some government growth — a lot of it, actually, City Manager Ron Williams said.

For many years, before Williams was hired, the city refused to grow, he said. 

The city cut and cut until there was nothing left but bone.

Now Williams said the city is undermanned and small as far as its service mandates. Roads, pipes and facilities are all in need of repair and maintenance.

His hope is that by raising rates for certain services, the government will be able to upsize and adequately serve its residents.

But Sykes cautioned against government growing too large, especially at the federal level.

”There is a tendency for government to get too big,” he said. “If run like a business, citizens get better value from government.”

To read more about government payroll expenses, pick up the Tuesday, June 6, edition of The Thomasville Times-Enterprise.

The SunLight Project team of journalists who contributed to this report includes Thomas Lynn, Patti Dozier, Charles Oliver, Will Woolever, Alan Mauldin and Eve Guevara, along with the writer, team leader John Stephen. Kimberly Cannon also contributed to the report.

To contact the team, email sunlightproject@gaflnews.com.