Municipal cuts  Faced with deepening economic stagnation,
states, cities and government schools districts have
dramatically improved their financial condition by trimming
their payrolls, USA Today reported Friday.  In the past year,
state and local government employment has been reduced, mostly
through not filling vacancies, by 258,000, or 1.3 percent,
reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- even as the well-
padded federal work force, astonishingly enough, grew 3.4
percent to 2.2 million.  Three-fourths of the state and local
job cuts have occurred in states crippled by long legacies of
over-spending: New Jersey, New York, California, Ohio and
Michigan.  But -- while total local government employment is
smaller in Nevada due to the state's smaller population --
Nevada is actually second in the percentage of local government
jobs slashed at 2.9 percent reduction, trailing only New Jersey.
"The outlook is for more cuts," Donald Boyd, a finance expert at
the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y.