The Advantages of City Government Jobs
- Health insurance is a cherished benefit among many workers, including city employees. Many city employees may have cheaper monthly health insurance premiums than those insured through private sector jobs or who have outside coverage through an insurer. For example, a single civilian city employee of San Antonio only pays a $6 premium for his health insurance. There may even be different plan offerings for the city employees to choose from.
- Educational incentives are another common benefit to being a city employee. While these benefits will vary by city and job title, many city jobs offer incentives for continuing education. Some of these can include college tuition payment, college tuition reimbursement, money for books and more. There may be conditions on these receiving these benefits, such as maintaining a certain grade point average or being a city employee for a certain length of time. For example, City of San Antonio employees must receive a grade of "B" or better to be reimbursed for the cost of the course. Reimbursement may only be offered for schools in the city, county or state.
- One benefit not often discussed for city employees is that the employees often have first access to new job openings for the city. This is actually a benefit that can be at any governmental or private organization. For example, certain internal job postings for the Salt Lake City School District are available only to current employees of the school district. In some other cases, internal-only jobs may become viewable to the public after a specified amount of time.
- Another common benefit for city employees actually is the transference of many of these incentives for immediate family members. Certain educational reimbursements may be made available for children or spouses of city employees. Health benefits are also often offered to the immediate families of full-time city employees. For example, biological, adopted, foster and stepchildren under 26 can be added to the health plan of a City of San Antonio employee with proper documentation.
