Workforce Capacity in Municipal Government

• Published date: 01 March 2021
• Author: Agustin Leon‐Moreta,Vittoria R. Totaro
• Date: 01 March 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13155

Research Article

Workforce Capacity in Municipal Government 273

Abstract: The central aim of this article is to examine trends in the municipal government workforce in metropolitan

(urban) areas. It explores, from a local public economies perspective, how the intergovernmental organization of

municipalities influences their workforce capacities. The article situates the local labor market in state-local systems

and examines how local governments respond to fragmentation in a metropolitan area. The main finding is that the

employment capacity of municipalities varies widely across metro areas, with local and intergovernmental factors

affecting municipal workforces and labor expenditures. Local capacities and the state’s labor framework appear to be

influential in the level of government employment. Facing various challenges, municipalities adapt their workforce

levels to changing conditions in urban areas. While its main contribution is to research on local government capacity,

the article also draws from the intergovernmental literature to identify factors that influence the workforce capacity of

municipal governments.

Evidence for Practice

• Development of employment capacity allows local governments to extend their provision of public goods

and services.

• Municipal incorporation may provide unincorporated communities with independent, self-governing

capacity to employ a government workforce.

• Cooperative programs, such as interlocal agreements, can support the workforce capacities of municipal

governments.

• State policy makers may incorporate the effect of labor policies on governmental employment into their

evaluation of proposals for right-to-work legislation.

Local governments, by their very nature, are labor

intensive and require extensive labor resources.

Further, while other levels of government serve

important roles in public employment, municipal

governments are the largest source of public

employment in metropolitan areas (U.S. Census

Bureau, Census of Governments 2012). In these

areas, municipalities employ a substantial number of

citizens because these governments are responsible

for delivering core government services (Briffault and

Reynolds 2016; Gregory and Borland 1999). While

the general purpose of municipalities is to deliver

local services, a derivative yet substantive benefit of

delivering those services is the availability of local

public employment. By establishing a workforce,

municipalities offer their citizens a source of stable

employment and the broader benefits derived from

it (Berman et al. 2019; Llorens, Klingner, and

Nalbandian 2018).

Whether to extend or retrench their workforce is a

crucial decision for municipalities (Donahue, Selden,

and Ingraham 2000). This decision will be of interest

not only to municipal governments but also to their

residents, who derive economic benefits from the

presence of these governments in local employment.

Still, wide differences are prevalent in the workforces

of municipal government across metropolitan

areas. While some municipal governments serve

as the largest employer in their jurisdiction, other

governments have a minimal presence in local

employment (Anderson 2014; Volscho and Fullerton

2005). What factors explain the employment

capacities of municipal government?

The significance of this question for theory and

practice concerns the role that municipal governments

serve in employing a workforce to deliver public

goods and services. In a federal system, municipal

governments play that crucial role because these

governments are delegated responsibilities of

general government. Local capacity building is a

growing agenda of public administration research

(Hall 2015; Wallis and Dollery 2002). Workforce

Agustin Leon-Moreta

Vittoria R. Totaro

University of New Mexico

Workforce Capacity in Municipal Government

Vittoria R. Totaro is an evaluator

with i2i Institute in Taos, New Mexico.

She received a master’s degree in public

administration from the University of New

Mexico. Her research interests include

the interrelationships between the public

and nonprofit sectors and the social

determinants of public service provision

and access.

Email: vrtotaro@gmail.com

Agustin Leon-Moreta is assistant

professor of public administration at the

University of New Mexico. He received

a PhD in public administration from the

Askew School at Florida State University.

His research programs include municipal

organization and fiscal responsibilities of

municipalities. His research is published or

forthcoming in Public Administration

Review, American Review of Public

Administration, Urban Affairs Review,

Urban Studies, and other journals. Data

sets from his research are shared on the

open ICPSR website.

Email: apleonmoreta@unm.edu

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 2, pp. 273–285. © 2020 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13155.