LANSING – While private sector employment has shown some rebound since the end of the Great Recession, employment by Michigan local governments continues to fall, a report from the Citizens Research Council said.

K-12 education has been especially hard hit with overall employment down by job losses. Total employment in the sector is down by 27 percent since 2001, the report said. K-12 education is the largest sector of government employment in the state, with 55 percent of all public workers in Michigan’s public schools.

The only sector of public employment that has shown growth over the past decade, the report said, has been employment at the state’s public universities and colleges.

And while private sector employment has improved, the report said, it still is below the number of people employed in 2001.

The report said this year, public employment at all levels – federal, state and local – accounts for 15 percent of the more than 4 million people employed. The largest share of that, 9.2 percent, was in local government, and that included persons employed in local schools.

However, in looking at what sectors have seen job gains since 2001, both private-sector jobs and local government jobs have declined. State government jobs have increased, but that is entirely because of increased hiring at public colleges.

Local government jobs are down by some 16 percent from 2001, the report said.

Private sector jobs are down by about 12 percent, but during the depth of the recession between 2008 and 2011, they were down by nearly 20 percent.

State government jobs are up by about 5 percent. But jobs at public universities and colleges are up by 22 percent, while other state government jobs are down by some 13 percent.

Non-education related local government jobs are down by some 8.4 percent since 2001, the report said.

But local education jobs are down by 27 percent during the same period, the report said. That equates to some 67,000 jobs.

The main reasons for the drop are cutbacks in state revenues and declining enrollment. While the base per pupil funding in the state has increased, a larger percentage of local school revenues has to be allocated to the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System, which also affects local school hiring.

Also, the trend to outsourcing school services to private companies also has had an effect on the total number of education jobs, the report said.

But other sectors in local government jobs have also taken big hits, with total reductions in public safety, local government administration, parks and recreation and other sectors, down by 20 percent or more.

Those job losses are largely attributable to drops in local revenues with property tax collections – the primary source of local revenues – down by some 15 percent during the recession.

And drastic changes and cutbacks in the state’s statutory revenue sharing program, now called the Economic Vitality Incentive Program – which allocates funds based largely on programs local governments develop to co-join services and programs – has dropped from more than $900 million in 2001 to $263 million in 2012.

After the report was issued, the Michigan Municipal League issued a statement saying the report provided more evidence that the state had balanced its budget on the backs of local governments.

And those cuts, the MML said, have also helped drive Michigan’s per-capita income to among the lowest of all the states.

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