Local Governments are the most well-rounded organizations in the world

There are a lot of great organizations in the world. From NPO's and NGO's to Corporations and even Sole Proprietorships. The sheer amount of assets and infrastructure that some of the largest organizations in the world manage can cause one's head to spin just thinking about it. These organizations often deploy thousands of employees specializing in many disciplines across multiple continents to keep these organizations running profitably and efficiently.

There is one type of organization however, that may deploy a more diverse array of expertise than even the largest companies in the world and they are closer to you than you think.

Local governments perform an array of functions and services with operating budgets much smaller than many of their counterparts in the private sector.

We analyzed publicly available data from private sector, publicly listed companies and compared it to a mid-sized municipality, Michigan's capital city of Lansing, a Mayor-Council city with a population of 112,000.

Lansing has a 2022/2023 budget of $243 million with around 900 employees based on the city's 2023 Budget and FY 2021 ACFR, including over 375 employees in Fire and Public Safety.

In the private sector, there were 140 publicly traded companies with listed revenue between $250 million and $300 million. Of these companies, the average number of employees (unweighted) was 1121.