How Much Does it Cost to Run My

County Government?
30/09/2015

John Kinuthia
Research Analyst

What we did
Estimated the costs of core personnel and
administration required to run a county.
Core personnel is mostly senior staff, state officers
from both the executive and the assembly
Administration includes support staff as well as
insurance costs at both levels of government.
Operation and maintenance costs are calculated as
a percentage of total wage costs excluding
insurance
We also calculated car loans and mortgage costs for
CECs and MCAs only.
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Which data we used

SRC circulars issued between March 2013 and
December 2014.
Reports and circulars from the Commission on
Revenue Allocation.
Division of Revenue Bills and Acts 2013/14
and 2014/15

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Core Personnel
County Executive
Governors
Deputy Governors
CEC Members
County Secretaries
Chief Officers
County Assembly
Speaker
Deputy Speaker
Leader of Majority
Deputy Majority Leader
Chief Whip
Deputy Chief Whip
Leader of Minority
Minority Whip
Chairpersons (excl the Speaker)
V/chairpersons
Speakers Panel
All other MCAs

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Calculating the number of Assembly Committees

The County Assembly Forum website had

committee data for all 47 counties but only 38
were complete.
The actual number of committees fluctuated
between 15-26.
We took an average of the 38 complete sets=
20 committees per assembly
We used this average for all counties, rather
than actual numbers to avoid incentivizing
counties to have more committees
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What is the cost difference based on the number

of Assembly Committee Numbers?
The total running costs for counties based on
an average number of committees is Ksh 48.5
billion
Using the actual number of committees the
total costs was slightly lower at Ksh 48.4
billion.
However, the differences at individual county
level were more varied.

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County

Average Committee
Number

Actual Committee
Numbers

Difference

% Change in Total
County Costs

1 MAKUENI

20

25

10,218,000

1.0%

2 KILIFI

20

23

8,133,840

0.7%

3 MOMBASA

20

24

7,506,720

0.7%

4 UASIN GISHU

20

24

7,122,960

0.7%

5 GARISSA

20

23

7,104,240

0.7%

20

20

592,734

0.1%

5 WAJIR

20

17 -

8,133,840

-0.8%

4 VIHIGA

20

16 -

8,505,120

-0.9%

3 KAKAMEGA

20

16

(10,845,120)

-0.8%

2 NAKURU

20

16

(10,845,120)

-0.8%

1 TURKANA

20

15

(13,556,400)

-1.3%

COUNTY AVERAGE

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Adminstration
County Executive
Chief of Staff
Chair County Public Service Boards
Vice Chair County Public Service Boards
Member County Public Service Boards
Secretary County Public Service Board
County Treasury
Sub-County Administrators
Ward Administrators
Support Staff Governors Office-:of which
Cooks
Tea Person
Gardener
Advisors
County Assembly
County Assembly Staff
County Assembly Ward Staff
County Assembly Service Board
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Core Personnel
The total cost for core personnel in the
counties is Ksh 22.7 billion.
The County executive makes up Ksh 6.6 billion
of this while the assembly estimated costs are
Ksh 16.1 billion.
Ksh 6.7 billion of this are costs for operations
and maintenance.

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Estimated Cost
(Billions)

County Core Personnel

Core County Executive Personnel

4.7

Estimated O&M for County Executive Core Personnel

1.9

Total County Executive Core Personnel Cost

6.6

Core County Assembly Personnel

11.2

Estimated O&M for County Assembly Core Personnel

4.8

Total Core County Assembly Personnel Cost

16.1

Total for County Core Personnel

22.7

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County Administration
The total administration costs came to Ksh
23.1 billion.
The executive is the big driver of this cost
accounting for Ksh 14 billion while the county
assemblies cost came to Ksh 9.1 billion
Operations and maintenance costs were Ksh
5.3 billion of the total.

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Estimated Cost
(Billions)

County Administration
Executive Administrative Personnel

10.8

Estimated O&M for County Executive Administration

Total County Executive Administration Cost

3.2
14.0

County Assembly Administrative Personnel

7.0

Estimated O&M for County Assembly Administration

2.1

Total County Assembly Administration Cost

9.1

Total County Administration Cost

23.1

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Bringing it all together

Our total estimates for county running costs
was Ksh 48.5 billion
The Assemblies make up Ksh 27.4 billion and
the Executive estimates are Ksh 21.1 billion

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www.Internationalbudget.org/kenya

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Car Loans and Mortgages

SRC released 2 circulars (in 2013 and mid-2014) for
car and mortgage benefits for MCAs and CECs
respectively.
The circulars suggested that these benefits would be
provided through the budget as cash-backed funds
(i.e., the full value of the loan would be set aside by
the government).
Our total estimated cost for the two sets of officials is
Ksh 13.4 billion, which we spread across five years
(Ksh 2.7B annually).

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County Expenditure Items

Estimated Cost

Core County Personnel

22,696,579,009

County Administration

23,096,116,270

Car Loan and Mortgage

2,680,000,000

Total Estimated Costs

48,472,695,279

Total Estimated Costs as a % of Equitable Share

19%

Total Estimated Costs as a % of Kenya's Total Budget

2%

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 The average cost of running a county is Ksh 1.03

billion
At individual county levels, Nairobi has the highest
cost of Ksh 1.8 billion.
Lamu and Isiolo Counties have the lowest costs at
Ksh 695 million each.
Nairobis costs were two and a half times higher than
Lamu/Isiolo

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www.Internationalbudget.org/kenya

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Implications for the Basic Equal Share

One way to think about this is by using the lowest cost
county as the base.
Multiply base by a factor of 47.
In this case, Ksh 695 million multiplied by 47 comes to
Ksh 32.7 billion.
This is 13 percent of the total equitable share (Ksh 260
billion) in 2015/16.
Each county should get this as the equal share and the
rest of their running costs should be determined by other
factors such as assembly sizes, population land area etc.
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Expanded Car Loans and Mortgages Benefits

In Dec 2014, SRC issued a new circular expanding
this benefits to all state officers and public officers.
The benefit is stated as a 3% loan for 5 years for car
purchase, and a 3% loan for 20 years for a home
mortgage
This increased the benefits going forward for MCAs
and CECs as well.
Did not include in our estimates due to the very high
potential costs associated with this; not necessarily
to be implemented all at once

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Job Title

Job Group

Car Loan

Mortgage

Executive
Governors

10,000,000

40,000,000

Deputy Governors

5,000,000

25,000,000

CEC Members

4,000,000

20,000,000

County Secretaries
Chief Officers

4,000,000

20,000,000

4,000,000

20,000,000

Chief of Staff

4,000,000

20,000,000

Chair County Public Service Boards

Vice Chair County Public Service Boards

4,000,000

20,000,000

3,000,000

15,000,000

Member County Public Service Boards

3,000,000

15,000,000

Secretary County Public Service Board

3,000,000

15,000,000

Advisors

3,000,000

15,000,000

Sub-County Administrators
Ward Administrators

P,Q

3,000,000

15,000,000

L,M

1,500,000

10,000,000

Cooks

A-F

600,000

4,000,000

Tea Person
Gardener

A-F

600,000

4,000,000

A-F

600,000

4,000,000

Support Staff Governors Office-:of which

County Assembly
Speaker

4,000,000

20,000,000

County Assembly Clerk

Members of the County Assembly

4,000,000

20,000,000

3,000,000

15,000,000

County Assembly Staff

K-N*

1,500,000

10,000,000

County Assembly Ward Staff

A-F

600,000
4,000,000
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*This was taken as the median job group because the staff were not broken down by job groups

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How much does this cost?

Depends whether it is a cash-backed fund like
the original benefit or not. If cash-backed:
The cost for the scheme for all staff excluding the
CECs and MCAs is Ksh 120 billion
When we add the CECs and MCAs cost based on their
old benefits the cost rises to Ksh 133 billion
Taking into account CECs and MCAs with their new
benefits the costs shoots up to Ksh 171 billion

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Car Loans and Mortgages Continued

The December circular does not say that the fund is
cash backed; it does say that the scheme shall be
managed internally
It is possible to pay an interest rate subsidy instead of
creating a cash-backed fund
Benefit requires loans at an interest rate of 3% while
market lending rates stand at 16%.
Counties could pay the 13 percentage point difference
on bank loans
Lower upfront costs than cash-backed fund, but costs
spread over many years and no return to government
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Car Loans and Mortgages

We calculated the cost of this subsidy of 13%

on a reducing balance basis.
The total costs comes to Ksh 6.5 billion for car
loans over 5 years and Ksh 207 billion for
mortgages over a period of 20 years.
That is Ksh 1.3 billion per year for car loans
and Ksh 10.3 billion per year for mortgages.
This does not include the cost of providing the
benefit to county service workers (health, etc.)
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Information and Guidance Gaps

Items where more information is needed
1) SRC and others should provide clear costings for all
benefits to be provided
2) The basis for costing of group insurance should be clear,
and some estimates for real property insurance should
also be derived.
3) The basis for operations and maintenance cost estimates
needs to be clarified
4) The basis for costing of extra mileage for Members of
County Assemblies needs to be clarified and a
centralized database of distances created
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Areas where guidelines might be required

1) What is the number of committees that each county
assembly should have?
2) What type of staff should be brought on board to
support the running of county assemblies and county
executives? What is the right balance between
administrative and technical staff?
3) Which staff hired by counties should be treated as
permanent and which should be treated as contract or
casual? (To properly establish gratuity costs)

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Thank You

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