Back on March 6th, I had some questions about the number of employees that the city has on the payroll:

Update 2: Veddy interestink. This figure shows up further into the release:

But please remember that no organization with over 20,000 employees can eliminate all risk of violations of existing laws against self-dealing. Swift and severe actions such as those described by me today constitute the most significant deterrent to future misconduct.

Over 20,000? How does this fit with 12,588? Do we have 8,000 police and fire department employees?

Matt Stiles of the Chronicle follows up with the comment:

My payroll database shows there are 20,113 employees, including police and fire. This figure excludes the names of about aviation employees, who weren’t included in the database because of post-9/11 security concerns. There are about 1,500 employees in that department, though.

Now, the figure of 12,588 comes from this article about the fight between the two unions that want to represent the non-police, non-fire employees (see the Legal Department’s response pictured).

I should have realized the figures would be available in the budget. A cautious little birdie passed along these figures:

According to Police’s CAFR, there were 5,225 policemen on 7-1-04. According to Fire’s CAFR, there were 3,375 firemen on 7-1-02.

The CAFR is the Consolidated Annual Financial Report, a high-level overview of the budget. The 2005 version is available online. What this means is the rough number of 20,000 city employees total is accurate.

5,225 police (7-1-04)
3,375 fire (7-1-02)
12,588 other (1-4-06; non-police, non-fire)
21,188 Total

22,613 (Matt’s figure of 21,113+1,500)

20,000+ (Mayor’s total)

Things that make you go, “Hmmmmm.”

Did the Legal Department give the unions the correct figure? Is the difference due to changes in the police and fire department numbers? Was the mayor just being loose when he said “over 20,000” or is it over 20k but less than 21k now? Does anyone besides me think it’s strange that we can find out how many policemen or firemen the city has, but not Aviation Department employees? Does anyone think it’s strange that it’s so difficult to find out how many employees the city has, period?

Maybe we need to ask the city how many people it hired, how many it fired (er, indefinately suspended), and how many retired in the last few years? Preferably on a month by month basis. . .