Why Has the Los Angeles City Payroll Increased by 40% (While City Employment Shrank!) from 2017 to 2024?
LADWP Looks Bloated!!
The City of Los Angeles releases its annual micro data listing who it employs and how much each of these employees earns. In this factual Substack, I use this data to sketch out some facts. Mayor Karen Bass faces a budget deficit, and she will raise my taxes. Is there public sector waste here? What do these workers do all day long? Note that public school teachers are not included in this data.
Table One
The City of Los Angeles Payroll (Excluding Education) in 2017 and 2024
Do you see the payroll has grown by 40% in total dollars? The Police’s expenditure share declined from 27% to 23.5%, but this department’s total pay increased from 1.4 billion to 1.7 billion! How many workers work in each of these departments?
The City of Los Angeles Public Employment Count by Department in 2017 and 2024
So, 450 people worked at the LA Zoo in 2017, and 15,198 worked at the Police Department. Note that the total employment count in 2017 was 72,415, which shrank from 2017 to 2024 to 66,722, even though the total wage bill grew by 40% from 2017 to 2024.
Check out the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power! It employs more than 11,000 people, and its total payment budget will be 28% in 2024 (greater than the Police Department!!). I smell waste. Will Elon Musk’s DOGE visit Los Angeles?
These data raise several economic questions. What do each of these workers do to improve my city? Why do their unions have such clout? If all of these services (except for the Police) were privatized, what would be the cost of service provision reduction? Would the quality of the service provision decline?