Amherst town police were the highest-paid group of local government employees north of the Mid-Hudson Valley, according to the Empire Center’s 2015 “What They Make” report. The town’s 154 uniformed police officers were paid an average of $106,121.

The report uses pay data reported to the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015. The amounts listed in the report do not include fringe benefits such as health insurance or employer pension contributions, which can add 35 percent or more to the cost for taxpayers.

Users can search the 175,327 pay records of town, city, county and village employees on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. The Western New York data also show:

• The highest-paid village police in the region were Hamburg’s 13 police officers, who were paid an average of $95,392.
• Lockport paid its uniformed police and fire employees an average of $89,958, the most among the region’s cities. Buffalo, which was the highest-paying in last year’s report, paid its uniformed employees an average of $88,166.
• Erie County’s 5,294 employees had the highest average pay among the region’s five counties at $44,093.

The ten highest-paid local government employees in the Western New York region (Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie and Niagara Counties) were:

The Empire Center is a non-partisan, non-profit independent think tank based in Albany. SeeThroughNY includes payroll and pension data for state and local government employees and retirees; detailed expenditure data for the state Legislature; comparative statistics on local government spending; a searchable database of state revenue and expenditures; and copies of all teacher union contracts and superintendent of schools contracts.