In January 2013, Chautauqua County had 54,000 jobs. Now, it has 49,300.

Needless to say, it’s been a tough decade for private-sector employers.

But times haven’t been as tough when it comes to Chautauqua County government. Over 10 years, county employment has remained incredibly stable, increasing by exactly one person over the past decade. That doesn’t sound too bad. The problem is that simple analysis forgets one tiny little tidbit of information — Chautauqua County sold its nursing home in 2014 and, with it, decreased its total number of employees by 270.

The fact that overall county employment has gone up by 271 employees since 2014 paints a different picture, doesn’t it?

Not all of that growth in employment is paid on your county tax bill. Some of those additional positions are paid for with grants from the federal and state governments. Some, like school resource officers, are paid for by local school districts who want a Sheriff’s Deputy to be in their school. And we aren’t going to argue that some of those county employees aren’t needed. In our view, many are. It’s hard to argue that the county’s 27 additional employees in the Emergency Services Department, largely due to the addition of the county’s fly cars, haven’t saved lives with faster emergency response in rural areas. We can’t sit here with a straight face and say the additional 40 employees in the county Mental Heath Department aren’t needed at a time when mental health crises and drug addiction surround our county like a dense fog.

But it’s important, as we brace for possible economic uncertainties that many economists see coming this year, to be absolutely clear that while Chautauqua County’s tax rate has remained consistent over the past several years, Chautauqua County government and its tax levy have grown. The local county government tax levy has grown from $62,135,666 to $69,681,835 — a fact largely overshadowed by the growth in the county’s taxable assessment over the same time that dropped county tax rates from $9.15 per $1,000 of assessed valuation in 2013 to $7.80 per $1,000 in 2013.

Taken individually, it’s easy to justify each and every position that has been added over the past 10 years. But when you look at the sum of those parts, you’re left shaking your head wondering how things got back to this point.

That’s why it’s so interesting to see County Executive PJ Wendel report in his sparsely read Monday Morning Memos that one of his 2023 goals is to increase county workforce efficiency to provide better and more efficient government services. But this isn’t just about centralizing the Finance Department and reorganizing human services programs to integrate social services divisions with the Department of Mental Hygiene.

Chautauqua County has added an average of 27 jobs a year to the payroll over the past decade. It’s time to take a hard look at the services those jobs provide and decide if the county needs all those increased positions.