LITTLE COMPTON — With the tiniest population in the East Bay, it’s not surprising that Little Compton also has the smallest payroll for public employees.

In 2006, the town’s combined municipal and school payroll of $3.4 million was dwarfed not only by Newport’s, which was more than 10 times as large, but even neighboring and similarly rural Tiverton, which was about five times as large.

While Little Compton’s payroll is much smaller, how the money is spent is fairly typical of other communities.

Like most area communities, the town spends more on school employees, $2.7 million, than it does on municipal employees, $1.7 million. The disparity would be even greater if the figures reflected the town’s payment to Portsmouth to educate its high school students. Many East Bay communities have school payrolls that are double or triple their municipal payrolls.

Residents’ tax dollars support a municipal government that has a relatively high number of full-time equivalent employees, with a ratio of one for every 107 town employees. Only Newport, with 67 municipal employees for every resident, and East Providence, with 101 municipal employees for every resident, have smaller ratios. The rest of the communities range from 110 to 170 municipal employees per resident.

Town Council president Robert Mushen said that some people mistakenly assume that since the town’s population of 3,500 is a fraction of other area communities, its governmental costs should be a comparable fraction of the costs of the larger communities as well. But, he says, that’s not entirely true. The town still has to maintain a minimum level of services.

“If the town were twice the size, I believe we could get economies of scale we can’t get now,” Mushen says.

For example, to operate a Fire Department capable of responding to emergency calls 24 hours a day, at least two people need to be on duty during each of the three daily shifts. That’s six full-time firefighters. Two others are necessary to ensure that the shifts are filled because of vacation and sick time. The situation, he says, is the same for the Police Department. Both require support staff too.

“One of the realities of our town is that we have a nine-man Fire Department and a nine-man Police Department,” he says.

And there’s still a need for overtime, he says, estimating that the Fire Department expends about $80,000. He didn’t have a figure for police because some of the money comes from a drug forfeiture account.

“The idea that we would pay overtime is not surprising to me because of the way we are manned,” he says, referring to the town’s reluctance to hire more people than necessary to minimally man the shifts.

While the Fire Department has a part-time chief (a search for a new one is ongoing), there is a full-time police chief.

Public safety represented nearly one-quarter of the town’s payroll in 2006, by far the second largest category for payroll expenses. But it still wasn’t close to the figure for public education, which represented 61 percent of the entire payroll.

Other East Bay communities devoted from 50 percent to 70 percent of their payrolls to schools, with the exception of Barrington at a high of 78 percent. The number of full-time equivalents per resident in Little Compton is 58, less labor intensive than about half of the communities but equal to or more labor intensive than the other half. However, the number doesn’t reflect that high school students are taught by Portsmouth teachers.

“The fact we don’t have a high school causes us to have a lower overall [payroll] cost,” Mushen says.

Average pay for non-school employees, $52,517, is lower than most other East Bay communities. The same holds true for school employees, at $43,820, with other communities’ average pay ranging from $50,000 to in excess of $60,000.

Little Compton is one of the wealthiest communities in the region, with a median household income of $64,781, according to the 2000 census, adjusted for inflation. Only Barrington and Portsmouth have higher figures.THE PUBLIC PAYROLL: EAST BAY

Payroll costs are by far the biggest item in the budgets of cities and towns. In the East Bay region, pay for municipal employees totaled more than $94 million, according to reports supplied to The Journal for each community for the calendar year 2006. The money for salaries came from local taxes, along with fees, grants and other sources.

In every community except for Newport, more money is spent on schools than on nonschool functions such as police and fire protection and public works.

The median household income offers a possible measure of the citizens’ ability to pay their municipal workers.

POPULATION is from 2006 U.S. Census estimates. MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME is from 2000 Census, adjusted for 17 percent inflation from 2000 to 2006. SCHOOL and NON-SCHOOL PAYROLLS were compiled by the Journal from 2006 figures. SCHOOL FTEs are from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for 2005-06 school year and are a total of teachers and staff. NON-SCHOOL FTEs are from the state Office of Municipal Affairs for 2007 fiscal year. (FTEs are calculated with a full-time employee counting as one and a part-time worker counting as a fraction of one, depending on how many hours he or she works.)

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

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