Municipal Government Benefits Practices and Personnel Outcomes: Results from a National Survey

Employee benefits are an essential and costly component of the compensation and human resources management system. This research effort surveyed 358 municipal governments on their employee benefits practices. The survey results clearly indicate that municipal governments are very competitive in terms of traditional benefits (health, pensions, dental coverage, etc.) as all 10 types, except for short-term disability, are provided by a majority of the responding municipalities and exceed private sector rates. Municipal governments lag behind the private sector in the deployment of key family-friendly benefits such as child-care, elder care, flexi-place, flex-time and job sharing.