I'm on a local kick today so let's keep it rolling with this great news:

New York, New York. If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere.

But when it comes to earning money as a government employee, New Jersey has it all over the Big Apple.

New Jersey's 389,000 local and state employees had a median salary of $49,164 in 2008. That means half the employees made more and half made less.

In New York City, the most expensive place to live in the U.S., the median salary was $48,076 for 251,000 city employees. (Both figures do not include police officers because the city's police payroll is still pending under a public records request.)

Hammer Toe:

So, not only is the median salary of local and state employees higher in N.J. than it is in NYC, there are 138,000 more government employees in N.J. than there are in NYC, while the total population of both areas are almost identical.

If it's possible to have a State whose population works only for the Government, New Jersey will find a way. We'll just start robbing NYC and Philadelphia...paging Tony Soprano.

Or, there's always this way:

With the growth in the pension plan and the salaries and the corruption that goes on in this state, I think the state is going to have to go into bankruptcy," said Runfola, 63. "It's the only way out."

The waste is literally breathtaking:

By contrast, New York City's highest paid salaried employee, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, supervises the largest school district in the nation. City schools have 1.1 million students, more than 1,600 school buildings, 80,000 teachers, and an annual budget of about $21 billion. Klein was paid $248,957 in 2008.

Among educators in New Jersey, Klein would rank fourth in the state, behind the superintendents of Newark ($275,000), Camden ($262,930), Ridgefield Park ($262,500) and Jersey City ($250,700), according to an Asbury Park Press review of education payrolls for 2008.

When benefits and bonuses are added in, the sky is the limit in New Jersey.

Twelve superintendents were each given more than $150,000 in retirement bonuses when they left in 2008, according to a Press review of state payroll records. One bonus, $740,000 to former Keansburg Superintendent Barbara A. Trzeszkowski, is being contested in court by the state.

And as we've written here before, Jersey taxpayers pay the pensions of folks who don't even work for the Government. Mr. Christie's got his work cut out for him.

Russ