Number crunching on the relative size of New Mexico’s local governments

The Rio Grande Foundation recently published a comparison of government employment in New Mexico cities and counties. While the size of New Mexico’s state and local work forces combine for second-highest in the nation, there is a great variety among cities and counties. Rob Nikolewski of Capitol Report has dug into the numbers with some more analysis here.

Again, we have already done research finding that relative to the private sector, New Mexico’s state and local work forces are the second most bloated in the nation, states do allocate duties differently among state and local governments, so interstate comparisons are difficult.