The level of state government employment in Illinois has been on a roller coaster that appears to turn up, then down on the strength of the economy, rather than in response to demand for services.

The state of Illinois is by far the largest employer within the state, and thus its trends are signficant. Employing 85,965 job holders as of 1991, exclusive of public universities, Illinois state government ranks first as the top employer in the state, followed by the U.S. government, the Chicago Board of Education and the city of Chicago. Sears Roebuck ranks fourth and is the largest private employer with just under 40,000 employees. (See table 1.)

The raw employment trend data displayed here are mainly descriptive of the last 20 years, pointing to where and when increases and decreases occurred. Employment figures are from the Office of the Comptroller's Monthly Comparative Payroll Statistics and specifically for the month of March from 1972 to 1992. (March was chosen because it is a relatively stable employment month; for instance state employment increases during summer and winter school breaks.) This data represents the initial phase of an on going study by the Illinois Tax Foundation on performance, efficiency and state employment in Illinois state government.

Table 1 15 largest employers in Illinois, 1991 Rank Employer Employees in Illinois 1 State of Illinois 85,965   (excluding universities)   2 U.S. government 68,989   (excluding Post Office)   3 Chicago Board of Education 48,639 4 City of Chicago 41,664 5 Sears Roebuck 39,645 6 U.S. Post Office 35,010 7 Jewel/Osco 34,151 8 Caterpillar 30,853 9 Illinois Bell 27,079 10 University of Illinois 24,817 11 Cook County 22,687 12 AT&T 21,861 13 Commonwealth Edison 18,842 14 United Air Lines 17,024 15 Motorola 16,647 Source:U.S. Department of Commerce, Illinois Comptroller, Illinois Department of Employment Security and Dun & Bradstreet.

Illinois state employment ranged from 72,800 to 85,000 between 1972 and 1992. A graph indicating year-to-year changes in that 20-year employment trend looks like a blueprint for a new roller coaster. Economists, however, might immediately think they were looking at a textbook illustration of a business cycle. The Illinois graph contains peaks and valleys, like those of a business cycle, that seemingly follow trends in the economy. State employment, excluding public universities, totalled 72,772 employees in 1972, but by 1981 the roller coaster had climbed to more than 80,000 employees. (See figure 1.) State employment then began its first journey downward during the two-decade period, falling to 74,300 employees in 1983. Just as in a classic business cycle, however, when the valley is reached and the economy begins to recover, there is no place to go but up, and state employment grew throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s when a new apex of 85,500 was achieved in 1991. Enter the Edgar administration with its challenge that state government, apparently unlike federal government, must try to begin to live within its means.The budget ax fell, and the rollercoaster started its way back down the hill on its way to an estimated low of 79,900 by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 1993. For a better understanding of state employment trends, a more complete picture than the mere overall employment numbers is necessary. Grouping the so-called code departments and other major state agencies into various categories provides some insight into employment trends for individual agencies as well as for groups of agencies with related missions or similar purposes. (Departments organized under the Adminstrative Code are referred to as "code" departments, but myriad other agencies, commissions, boards and authorities operate in state government.)

While Illinois state government is the state's No. 1 employer, without counting public universities' employment, trends within that higher education sector are also signficant, comparable in total employment to Sears Roebuck. Since 1972, public university employment has decreased. Illinois' 12 public universities employed 40,588 people in 1992, which was 3,102 or 7.1 percent fewer employees than in 1972. The years between the two

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A definite downsizing of public universities throughout the seventies and into the eighties occurred, until a low of about 37,600 employees was reached in 1983. From 1983 until 1992, the public university trends follow those of overall state employment almost perfectly, reaching a peak in 1991 of 44,544 employees and then falling to 40,588 employees in 1992. While public university employment decreased, full-time equivalent student enrollment in public universities increased 10.4 percent since 1973, indicating that the overall efficiency of public universities has improved since the early seventies. (See figure 2.) In 1972, for example, the student to employee ratio in the state's public universities was 4.2:1, while in 1992 it was 4.9:1. Thus, public universities have handled an increase in demand for their services while cutting back on their number of employees, which, taken in and of itself, indicates greater efficiency or plainly speaking, more bang for the buck.

In 1972, for example, the student to employee ratio in the state's public universities was 4.2:1., while in 1992 it was 4.9:1

Employment numbers for the individual universities also appear to follow a general trend. Employment at the seven largest public universities decreased from 1972 to 1992, while the number of employees at the state's smaller, and newer, universities increased. For instance, the number of employees at Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal decreased from 4,961 in 1972 to 3,357 in 1992 or 32 percent, and the number of employees at Western Illinois University in Macomb decreased by 606 or 22 percent. For the same period employment increased at the two smallest and newest universities (both established without freshman and sophomore classes in the early 1970s): Employment at Sangamon State University in Springfield increased by 541 or 137 percent, and employment at Governors State University in University Park increased by 348 or by 180 percent.

The employment trends for "regular" state government show that the public safety category is up sharply, 95.7 percent over the two-decade period, from 8,942 in 1972 to 17,503 in 1992. State agencies included in this category are the Department of Corrections, the Department of State Police and the Department of Nuclear Safety from the executive branch, and the courts. The public safety category is the only one where each agency within the category increased its employee totals over the 20-year period. Department of Corrections employment numbers increased from 4,953 in 1972 to 11,736 in 1992, accounting for much of the growth in the public safety category. (See figure 3.) The courts, which include judges and administrative personnel, grew from 1,267 to 2,155 over the two decades. The State Police increased from 2,722 to 3,385 from 1972 until 1992, and Nuclear Safety, created in 1981, increased from 47 to 227 employees between 1981 and 1992. The Department of Corrections is a state agency where employment has been driven by demand of its prison population. That population went from 6,100 in 1973 to more than 31,000 in 1992, and it is expected to grow to 45,000 by the year 2000, according to projections by the Department of Corrections. (For details on prison popula-

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tion, see forth coming Tax Facts published by the Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois.) More prisoners will likely require more employees, so growth in the Department of Corrections and in the public safety sector overall will probably continue into the 21st century.

In the category of human services, employment decreased 14 percent from 1972 to 1992, with the most dramatic reduction in the number of employees at the Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, accounting for most of the human services drop. Mental health employment fell from 22,910 in 1972 to 12,839 in 1992, a decrease of 43.2 percent, while three other departments in this category — Public Aid, Public Health and Children and Family Services — show increases in their employment numbers since 1972. (See table 2.) In addition, the four human services departments set up since 1972 are also up from their beginning year employment numbers.The four newer departments are the Department on Aging, Department of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, the Department of Rehabilitative Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The human service agencies, however, are currently among the many agencies under the budget knife. Employment figures for all human service agencies have fallen from their 1991 levels, which were 20-year highs except for mental health. Further cut backs this past summer, most notably at the Department of Children and Family Services and the Department of Public Aid, will send these figures downward, closer to their numbers of two decades ago.

While employment in the constitutional officers category increased about 9.4 percent from 6,989 in 1972 to 7,644 in 1992, there was no general trend. The category includes the one group where employment increased dramatically from 471 in 1972 to 1,048 in 1992. That group includes the six elected executive officers (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, comptroller and treasurer), members of the General Assembly and the governor's "cabinet" (agency directors appointed directly by the governor).

The category also includes those employed by the governor as his staff in the Office of the Governor; that office employment number fell from 323 in 1972 to a 20-year low of 198 in 1992. Also included in the category are those employed by the five other elected executive officials as well as the office of education under the State Board of Education and the auditor general in the legislative branch. Other dramatic 20-year trends were in two offices established by the 1970 Constitution: the Office of the Comptroller, doubling its work force from 206 to 419 employees, and the Office of the Auditor General, with a work force growing from 8 to 75 employees. State employment increased in the category of environment and business regulation, up about 33.8 percent from1972 to 1992. This increase seems indicative of a national and even global trend of increasing environmental aware-

In the category of human services, employment decreased 14 percent from1972 to 1982, with the most dramatic reduction . . .at the Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities

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ness. The number of employees for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) grew from 399 in 1972 (two years after it was established) to 987 in 1992, an increase of 104.8 percent over this 20-year period. (See figure 4.) The Department of Conservation increased its number of employees from 1,166 in 1972 to 1,408 in 1992, and the Department of Energy and Natural Resources, which grew out of the Illinois Institute of Natural Resources and became a code department in 1982, grew from 467 to 617 employees from 1982 to 1992. In fact, the Department of Professional Regulations (formerly the Department of Registration and Education) was the only code department in this category to lose employees, going from 904 in 1972 to 419 in 1992. (See figure 4.)

Departments dealing with economic development and infrastructure collectively fell about 19 percent from15,187 in 1972 to 12,307 in 1992. Both the Department of Transportation and the Department of Agriculture lost employees: Transportation employment fell 17.1 percent from 9,594 to 7,797, and agriculture employment dropped 15.3 percent from 767 to 650. The Department of Labor's employment dropped drastically from 4,955 to 95 employees, but this decrease came mostly from the creation of the new Department of Employment Security in 1985 from a division within the Department of Labor.

New departments do not necessarily mean more employees. There are more code departments in 1992 than there were in 1972. At least five code departments exist in 1992 that did not exist in 1972, but many of them were created by combining the duties of other departments and agencies into new departments. One example is the Department of Central Management Services (CMS). CMS took over the duties of the Department of Administrative Services and the Department of Personnel. In 1992, CMS had fewer employees than both of the previous departments in 1982, their last year of operation.

CMS had 1,175 employees in 1992, while the other two combined had 1,333 employees in 1982.

The Department of Employment Security provides another example of downscaling. It was created by executive order in 1984 by upgrading part of the Department of Labor into a department (see Illinois Issues, February 1985, page 18). The combined number of employees in 1992 of the Department of Employment Security and the Department of Labor was 3,040, which is less than the 4,257 employees in the Department of Labor in 1984, the last year that employment security was a part of that department.

These 20-year employment trends pose fundamental questions for elected officials and state managers: Will the roller coaster of state employment stop where it is, should it stop, where it is, or will state government reduce employment to the 72,000-74,000 range of 1972 and 1983? Will the state be able to meet the needs of those it serves if employment cuts continue? For example,the Illinois Department of Revenue has reduced its workforce by 37 percent since 1986 through privatizing about two-thirds of its data entry work and by enhanced technology. Are similar reductions even conceivable for the very different services provided by the human services agencies such as the Department of Children and Family Services? What effect will a change from 4.2:1 to 4.9:1 in the ratio of public university students to employees have on the quality of education that students receive?

Answers to these questions are beyond the scope of the article. Policy analysts and elected officials will have to respond soon, however, because there are predictions of both slow economic growth during the coming decade and rapid expansion of populations served by state government's most expensive programs, such as nursing home patients, prison inmates and the poor. *

Kraig Lounsberry is a research intern for the Illinois Tax Foundation.

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