City of Schenectady employees have the highest average pay of any city employees in the Capital Region for the last fiscal year, according to a report compiled by the non-partisan fiscal watchdog Empire Center.
General employees in Schenectady had an average pay of $40,655, about $5,000 higher than the average pay for city employees in the Capital Region, and fire and police employees had an average pay of $80,334, about $4,600 more than the average pay in Capital Region cities, based on pension data submitted to the state Comptroller’s Office from April 1, 2012 through March 31, 2013.
Missing from this picture is what the city of Schenectady gets for these costs, argued Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy. “We’re doing a lot of things,” he said of city employees.
Schenectady has 324 general employees and 267 fire and police employees, according to the report.
Empire Center Executive Director Tim Hoefer said taxpayers can judge for themselves based on their report, which also lists the highest paid individuals, regions and municipalities in the state, to determine whether they’re getting a good bang for their buck.
McCarthy said the city is already looking at how to convey to residents what services they’re buying with their tax dollars. He said a website might be set up that will keep track of empirical data, like how many calls police respond to or how many purchase orders are completed.
“It would let people look and see what is actually being done,” McCarthy said. “A lot of it is being done behind the scenes and below the surface.”
Hoefer said all the information in the report is easily obtainable, but it’s not the most complete data, as it is missing specifics, like job titles. “That is an access issue,” he said. “We would have to FOIL each entity individually.”
[A full story appeared in the print issue of the Daily Gazette on Friday, August 23, 2013]
©2013 Daily Gazette
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