Community conflict has been the domain of social science researchers for decades. However, the systematic study of conflict on city councils has received scant attention in this literature. In this study the authors explore the extent to which conflict is present on city councils in Wisconsin communities with populations greater than 10,000. By using the literature on non-profit and local government boards, the authors develop a set of hypotheses for testing in the analysis of the survey data. The multivariate model used in the analysis reveals certain demographic characteristics of council members, community characteristics, and board practices and behaviors explain a significant amount of the variance in city council conflict in Wisconsin local governments.

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This study examines whether, compared to their private sector counterparts, public sector health care employers are at a disadvantage using part-time (PT) nurses to lower labour costs. Findings reveal a lack of a PT wage differential. Public and Private sector PT nurses are less likely to receive health care and pension coverage compared with full-time (FT) nurses. Yet, these PT/FT nonwage compensation coverage differentials do not vary across sectors. The nonwage findings are interpreted as suggesting that public sector health care employers are just as likely as private sector health care employers to benefit from cost savings associated with lower nonwage coverage for PT nurses.

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