The benefits of working for Bloomberg

Bolstered in part by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s spending, the average New York City employee cost the city $107,000 a year in wages, health insurance, pension and other benefits in the 2008 fiscal year, an increase of 63 percent since 2000, according to a new report.

City worker compensation grew twice as fast as that of employees in the private sector and elsewhere in the public sector during the same period, the Citizens Budget Commission said in the report, which was released on Thursday. The increase was driven by contractual raises that outpaced the inflation rate, and by the rising cost of health insurance and pension benefits, said the commission, a business-backed research group.

The group said those benefits have remained “exceptionally generous” under Mr. Bloomberg.

And with the city staring at a projected $7 billion deficit by 2011, fiscal watchdogs are intensifying their calls for the Bloomberg administration to act more aggressively to control employee costs.

City Employee Pay Is Outpacing Private Sector, Report Says