City payroll expands during Marty Walsh’s tenure as mayor

Schools add 125 workers in a year

The ranks of city employees swelled in the first year of Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s administration, with the largest increase in the School Department, according to a report issued Thursday.

The report from the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a fiscal watchdog underwritten by businesses and nonprofit institutions, found that the number of full-time city workers increased by 134, to 17,116, between January 2014 and January 2015.

The report said the School Department accounted for nearly all of that increase, with 125 new employees.

The report noted that several factors contributed to School Department additions, such as a growing number of students in special education, and an improved teacher-assignment initiative.

The Research Bureau’s report said that as the Walsh administration prepares its first complete operating budget for 2016, officials will need to balance the mayor’s priorities and initiatives with the need to deliver basic city services.

“A balanced budget remains a challenge with solid personnel management being critical to achieving success,’’ a statement from the Research Bureau said.

The report also examined longer-term trends in hiring, and found that between January 2012 and January 2015, the number of city workers increased by 943, or 5.8 percent, with the school, police, and fire departments accounting for 86.7 percent of this increase.

That period includes the final years of the administration of former mayor Thomas M. Menino.

The city’s 44 other departments added 125 employees during that period. Those departments included 22 percent of the city-funded workforce as of January 2015, down from 25 percent in 2002, the Municipal Research Bureau said.

The report, released annually, found that spending for employee salaries and benefits totaled roughly $1.9 billion, accounting for about 68 percent of the city’s $2.7 billion fiscal 2015 operating budget.

Over the past three years, expenditures on employees increased $193.1 million, or 11.6 percent, with salaries responsible for 82.4 percent of that increase and benefits 17.6 percent, the report said.