Wonders never cease, and neither does the debate about how many people actually work for the city government. Then again, given the complexity of city government, the complexity of this argument is no wonder at all. The latest salvo comes from the director of the city’s Office of Management and Budget, Mark Page, in a letter printed nearby. Responding to an editorial we wrote last week about the glut of city employees, Mr. Page would have us believe that the Citizens Budget Commission, whose report on this matter we quoted, relied on faulty methodology to conclude that the headcount of city workers has swelled under Mayor Bloomberg.

Mr. Page says the CBC ignored part-time workers and employees who are paid by the city but work for other organizations. If the CBC had counted these, he argues, they would have noticed a decline in the headcount. It’s a useful argument if you’re trying to show that the headcount has decreased, but doesn’t tell citizens why their government is so expensive and their tax bills so steep. Unlike those part-time employees, each full-time employee costs an annual $13,673 in benefits (the CBC’s estimate of the bill for one civilian worker in 2004 – firefighters, policemen and teachers all cost more). And then there are the 13,000 social-service workers to whom the mayor has just given a raise, even though they technically aren’t on the city’s payroll and aren’t counted by either the CBC or by the OMB.

The CBC notes that much of the increase in the full-time payroll resulted not from new hiring but from a reclassification of formerly part-time employees to full-time status. But our point still stands. Even if Mr. Page is correct that Mayor Bloomberg has trimmed 15,000 less expensive workers, the number of the employees who cost the city the most has still increased by 17,000 under his watch.