http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/escondido/article_827950d0-eb3a-5117-8ee4-2639cdf188b5.html This article talks about some of the cities here in North San Diego County comparing recession budgetary moves. There's a section comparing the ratio of employees to residents for several cities.
Here's that section:
"Some analysts suggest differences in per-capita staffing could play a role in pension problems and how cities fare during recessions. But the numbers don't support that in North County, where most cities have about one employee for every 200 residents.
The only big deviations are San Marcos and Carlsbad, the two cities that have weathered the recession most successfully. But they deviate in different directions: Carlsbad has more aggressive staffing than its neighbors, with 1 employee for every 147 residents, and San Marcos has the leanest staff, with one employee for every 350 residents.
Escondido has 750 employees for 144,000 residents, or 1 employee for every 192 residents, and Oceanside has 900 employees for 180,000 residents, or 1 employee for every 200 residents."

One of the challenges in establishing a ratio of FTEs to population is that it needs to account for services delivered to be useful. If, for example, one city has police services provided by the county and another provides police services with city employees, that will affect the FTE to population ratio. It's difficult to "normalize" the ratio because of the need to consider services delivered.

Thanks for the article link Dan! Eveline I agree. It is difficult to really compare city population/FTE data because of city services provided. For example, Bend employees fire and police employees but not parks or library employees.

Hi nathan,

If you want to email me (emoulder@icma.org) the major services you all have responsibility for, I can try to match you with other cities that also deliver those services and you can contact them for their FTE information if that would be helpful. Our service delivery survey and the recent economic development survey collect lots of that information.

I agree that comparing with other cities is difficult unless you breakdown and compare specific services. You may also want to consider internal measurements of FTE looking back to a date and compare to today. For example, we are a high growth community so we look at the FTE per 1,000 residents in 1990 compared to today. Our population has increased 120% in the past 20 years while our employee FTE has increased 74%. Today we have 6.78 employees per 1,000 residents versus 8.54 employees in 1990 or 21% less. During this period, we have greatly expanded services by adding numerous parks, expanded the library, added 2 fire stations, provide public works services to 6,600 additional homes, expanded police, etc. Then we note that had we maintained the same per capita staffing during this period, the City would have 307 employees today rather than 244 or 63 more. The additional cost to taxpayers would be $5 million annually, requiring a 47% increase in the property tax to fund, or a corresponding reduction in services, or a combination of the 2. Hopefully you follow the logic.

This is an area I would like to see ICMA help us develop into a way of quantifying. I could imagine it as a checksheet that asked what services we provide and how many FTEs are involved. It COULD be very complicated (Can you say General Fund vs Utility) but it might also be a good tool if we resit complicating it too much.
I think FTE ratios show two things but does not separate them: how much staffing we have to do our jobs, and what range of services we are providing.