STATISTICS: LOCAL GOVERNMENT


               HIGHLIGHTS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN WISCONSIN

   Employment and Earnings - In 1985, Wisconsin ranked 36th in the number
of state and local
 government employes per state, with 426 per 10,000. Wisconsin has fewer
government employes
 per 10,000 than Iowa (ranked 25th), but has more than Michigan, Minnesota
and Illinois
 (ranked 40th, 43rd and 48th, respectively). The state employed 53,031 full-time
employes while
 local government employed 150,204.
   The majority of state employes are in the classified service (36.4 thousand
on December 31,
 1986), while 17.5 thousand are in the unclassified service.
   Of 32,040 state employes on the central payroll monitored by the Department
of Employment
 Relations (as of June 1986), 5.67 percent or 1,818 were minority employes.
Approximately 17.5
 thousand or 54.7 percent were males and 14.5 thousand or 45.3 percent were
females.
   In 1985, Wisconsin ranked 17th in earnings of state and local government
employes. Michi-
 gan, Minnesota and Illinois ranked higher (5th, 6th and 15th, respectively),
and Iowa ranked
 lower (29th). Over 10 years from 1976 to 1985, October payrolls in Wisconsin
increased by $58.9
 million on the state level and $152.7 million on the local level.
   School districts employed the largest number on the local level  over
110 thousand - while
 municipalities ranked second with 49.79 thousand and counties third with
46.85 thousand
 employes.
   By function, education ranked first in both the number of employes and
total payroll, followed
by police protection, hospitals, and highways.

   Units of Local Government - On January 1, 1986, local government in Wisconsin
was com-
prised of 72 counties, 189 cities, 393 villages and 1,266 towns. Counties
vary in size from Mil-
waukee with a 1986 estimated population of 935 thousand to Menominee County
with 3.9 thou-
sand, and from Marathon County with a land area of 1,599 square miles to
Pepin County with
231 square miles. County boards range in size from 46 supervisors in Brown
to 7 in Menominee.
   In 1982, excluding the District of Columbia, Hawaii had the smallest number
of total local
governmental units with 18 while Illinois had the largest with a total of
6,467. In comparison,
Wisconsin had a total of 2,592, ranking 14th.
  Cities may employ a mayor, manager or commission form of government. Of
189 cities, 12
have a city manager and 177 have a mayor. Of the 177 cities with mayors,
34 also have a city
administrator. No cities presently use the commission form of government.
Villages may utilize
a president (mayor) or manager form of government. Of 393 villages, 11 have
a manager and 382
have a president.

   County Officials - All counties elect a county clerk, treasurer, clerk
of circuit court, register of
deeds, district attorney, and sheriff; about a third elect a surveyor; a
coroner may be elected or a
medical examiner may be appointed by the county board; and each county board
chooses its
chairperson. Eight counties have an elected county executive, 7 have an appointed
county ad-
ministrator and 57 have an appointed administrative coordinator.
   In 1987-88, county offices are dominated by Republicans. The largest majority
occurs in the
office of sheriff with 47 Republicans and 24 Democrats. Women are the majority
office holders in
the positions of clerk of circuit court, register of deeds and county treasurers.

  Population - Of the total 1980 Wisconsin population of 4,705,642, approximately
49.7 per-
cent (2,336,665) resided in urban areas. Of this total, 62.6 percent (1,463,005)
lived in the central
city, the rest in the urban fringe. The city of Appleton had the lowest percentage
of population
residing in its central city (41.5 percent), and the city of Superior had
the highest percentage (98.1
percent). In Wisconsin's 2 largest cities (Milwaukee and Madison), 52.4 percent
and 79.9 per-
cent, respectively, resided in the central city.
  Based on the 1980 census of population, cities comprise a total of 2,703,579,
a decline of
17,466 from the 1970 census; villages comprise a total of 514,373, an increase
of 76,913; and
towns comprise a total of 1,487,383, an increase of 227,890. Thirty-eight
Wisconsin municipali-
ties had a population of 15,000 or more. The city of Milwaukee, with a population
of 636,297,
ranks first and the city of Muskego, with a population of 15,277, ranks 38th.


719