A total of 400 local government employees in New York outside New York City were paid more than $300,000 during fiscal year 2025-26, the large majority of them police officers on Long Island, according to payroll data submitted by local governments to the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS). The payroll data, which represents the gross pensionable earnings for the fiscal year, is made available through the Empire Center’s transparency website, SeeThroughNY.net.

Local government is a labor-intensive business. The 179,222 employees of the state’s counties, cities, towns, and villages outside New York City were paid a total of $12.0 billion during the fiscal year, which ran from April 1, 2025, through March 31, 2026.

Key Findings

• 37,304 local government employees were paid $100,000 or more, up 6.7 percent from the previous year.
• 1,567 employees were paid more than Governor Hochul’s $250,000 salary. Another 63 were reported at exactly $250,000, the pension earnings limit for Tier 6 members, which means their actual pay was likely higher.
• Of the 400 employees paid more than $300,000, 350 worked on Long Island. Suffolk County alone had 211 and Nassau County 101.
• The highest-paid local government employee was Alan Bakker, a Village of Northport police official, who received $485,632.
• The highest-paid employee outside police and fire ranks was Charles L’Hommedieu, a Suffolk County correction officer, at $353,711.
• The average local government employee was paid $67,037. Police and fire personnel averaged $125,366, more than double the $57,983 average for general employees.
• 5,720 people appear to be on the payrolls of two or more local governments, based on matching names and hire dates.

Search every 2025-26 local payroll record on SeeThroughNY →

Highest Paid Employees – Statewide

The highest-paid local government employee in 2025-26 was Alan Bakker of the Village of Northport police department, which lists him as its chief, at $485,632. Records matching his name and hire date show pay of $257,547 the previous year. The second-highest was Daniel Hyman, a Town of Ramapo police officer, at $421,338.

Twenty-five employees were paid more than $350,000. Suffolk County employed 14 of them.

Another 44 employees were reported at exactly $350,000, the federal limit on pension earnings for 2025-26 for members who joined NYSLRS on or after April 1, 1996. Their actual pay was likely higher, and some may belong above employees on the ranked list.

Highest-Paying Local Governments

Nassau County employees were the best paid of any county workforce, averaging $114,732. More than half of the county's 7,841 employees (53 percent) were paid $100,000 or more.

Nassau's payroll totaled $900 million, down from $1.0 billion the year before, as its headcount fell by 467. Suffolk County had the largest county payroll in the state, at $1.08 billion for 11,085 employees.

Yonkers again had the highest average pay of any city, at $120,425 for 2,251 employees. Every one of the four highest-paying cities is in Westchester County.

Among towns, Ramapo in Rockland County ranked first, at $118,105.

The highest village averages were in small, affluent communities on Long Island's North Shore, where police officers make up much of the payroll. The Village of Oyster Bay Cove's 14 employees averaged $201,804.

Pay figures for all 1,517 counties, cities, towns and villages, including payroll per resident and police and fire pay, are in the table below. It can be searched by name, type of government, county or region.

How Pay Is Spread

Averages can mislead when a payroll mixes full-time employees with part-time and seasonal workers. The median employee, the one in the exact middle, was paid $62,340, below the average of $67,037.

One in four employees was paid less than $25,026. Many of them were part-time or seasonal workers. At the other end, one in ten was paid more than $129,499 and one in a hundred more than $245,285.

Pay is also concentrated at the top. The highest-paid 10 percent of local government employees, those paid more than $129,499, received 26.5 percent of all local payroll. Police and fire pay ran well above general pay at every level: the middle half of police and fire employees were paid between $84,644 and $164,354, compared with $19,789 to $82,399 for general employees.

Cities paid the most of any type of government. The median city employee was paid $75,576, and 30.7 percent were paid $100,000 or more. The median county employee was paid $65,674, and 21.7 percent were paid at least $100,000. Town and village medians were close, at $50,545 and $50,286, but the average village employee was paid $58,805, compared with $52,451 for towns, a sign of how heavily a relatively small number of highly paid police officers weigh on village payrolls.

Paid More Than the Governor

A total of 1,567 local government employees were paid more than Governor Hochul's salary of $250,000 in 2025-26.

Of those, 1,213, more than three in four, worked on Long Island. Another 318 worked in the Mid-Hudson region. The remaining seven regions of the state accounted for 36 between them.

Police and fire personnel made up 1,352 of the 1,567. Most of the rest were county correction officers (121) and deputy sheriffs (48).

Suffolk County alone had 705 employees paid more than the Governor, and Nassau County had 350. The City of Yonkers was next, with 94.

The count is a floor. The Governor's salary also sets the pension earnings limit for Tier 6 members - those who joined NYSLRS on or after April 1, 2012. Another 63 employees, 45 of them police and fire personnel, were reported at exactly $250,000. Their actual pay was likely higher.

Pay by Region

Long Island had the highest average pay of any region, at $84,874, driven by police and fire personnel who averaged $167,646. The Mid-Hudson region was close behind at $80,584, and its general employees were the best paid of any region, averaging $69,003 compared with $67,511 on Long Island. Long Island's 37,210 employees included 350 of the state's 400 paid more than $300,000.

In both downstate regions roughly one employee in three was paid $100,000 or more. In the North Country the figure was one in 20.

Payroll Cost per Resident

Dividing a government's payroll by the population it serves puts the size of its workforce in context. The table below shows that payroll cost of serving each resident for each type of government, by region, based on 2020 Census population.

Payroll cost per resident served, 2025-26. Each column divides that type of government's combined payroll by the population it serves, based on the 2020 Census.

Cities, which provide police, fire and most other local services directly, had the highest payroll cost per resident served in every region, $942 outside New York City. The figure was $556 for counties, $548 for villages and $275 for towns. The highest individual figures came from resort and second-home communities with small year-round populations. The Village of East Hampton's payroll came to $7,944 for each year-round resident.

Each figure reflects one government's cost of serving its residents. Most New Yorkers are served by several local governments at once and pay taxes to each separately. The figures exclude school districts, special districts and fringe benefits. Figures for every local government are in the searchable table at the end of the Highest-Paying Local Governments section.

Police/Fire Pay

Police officers and firefighters were by far the best-compensated group of local government employees. The 24,081 police and fire employees averaged $125,366, more than double the $57,983 average for the 155,141 general employees. Police and fire personnel were 13 percent of the local workforce but received 25 percent of total pay.

Police and fire personnel accounted for 84 of the 100 highest-paid local employees. All 84 were police officers. Of the remaining 16, nine were county deputy sheriffs and seven were county correction officers.

Suffolk County's 2,643 police personnel averaged $170,077, and Nassau County's 2,417 averaged $167,308. Suffolk had 175 police employees paid more than $300,000 and Nassau had 89.

The best-paid police departments were in small Long Island villages. Twelve village departments averaged more than $200,000 per officer, led by Lake Success ($250,424 for 19 officers), Sands Point ($237,588), Great Neck Estates ($232,721) and Lynbrook ($230,618).

Outside Long Island, the Rockland County towns of Clarkstown ($196,893), Stony Point ($195,674) and Ramapo ($193,084) had the highest police averages. Among cities, Glen Cove's 57 police and fire employees averaged $185,555. Yonkers' 1,080 averaged $154,344.

New Rochelle's 160 firefighters averaged $166,211, the highest of any fire department with at least 20 members. Yonkers was next at $155,447.

Correction Officers

The 7,205 correction officers employed by 57 counties averaged $99,177. A total of 2,935 were paid $100,000 or more, and 30 were paid more than $300,000.

Suffolk County accounted for 21 of the 30 correction officers paid more than $300,000. Its officers averaged $141,576, the highest of any county. The two highest-paid officers in the state both worked for Suffolk: Charles L'Hommedieu at $353,711 and Michael Franchi at $350,313. Four more officers, two in Westchester County and two in Suffolk, were reported at exactly $350,000, the federal pension earnings limit, so their actual pay was likely higher.

Nassau County had seven officers paid more than $300,000, down from 46 the year before. The county's average for the position fell from $151,568 to $131,567.

Nine counties had average correction officer pay above $100,000: Suffolk ($141,576), Westchester ($132,863), Nassau ($131,567), Monroe ($114,828), Orange ($114,569), Rockland ($111,189), Ulster ($103,806), Putnam ($103,592) and Dutchess ($101,887).

Monroe County lists only eight employees under the title, so its figure may not represent the county's full jail staff.

On More Than One Payroll

The NYSLRS data does not identify individuals across employers. Records that share an employee's name and retirement system hire date, however, suggest that 5,720 people appear to have been on the payrolls of two or more local governments during 2025-26. Name and date matching cannot confirm that two records belong to the same person, and it misses people whose records were entered differently, so the figures below are estimates.

Most of these records appear to involve part-time posts. The most common job categories were general employee, laborer, appointed official and elected official. Holding more than one local government job is generally permitted, and in rural areas one person may serve several small governments.

• 64 people appear on the payrolls of five or more local governments. Records for Daniel Moyer, for example, appear on the payrolls of 14 towns and one village in St. Lawrence County, for combined pay of $57,402.
• 101 people appear to have received combined pay of $200,000 or more from two or more local governments.
• 616 people appear on two police and fire payrolls. Most are police officers who appear to also work part time for a second department, often in a small village or town.

The highest combined total belonged to records for Thomas Groneman, a Suffolk County police officer paid $369,690, who also appears on the Village of Head of the Harbor payroll at $5,377. Together the two records come to $375,067.

Special Districts

The figures above cover counties, cities, towns and villages. Another 16,750 employees worked for 498 special districts, some inside New York City, that participate in NYSLRS. These include libraries, fire and police districts, and water and sanitation districts. They were paid a total of $915 million in 2025-26. Their average pay was $54,615; 2,284 were paid $100,000 or more and nine were paid more than $300,000.

The largest special district payrolls belong to New York City's three public library systems. They are located inside the city but participate in NYSLRS. The New York Public Library's 2,161 employees were paid $148.2 million, the Queens Borough Public Library's 1,205 were paid $78.6 million, and the Brooklyn Public Library's 1,100 were paid $71.4 million.

The highest-paid special district employee was Terrance Neal of the New York Public Library, classified as a laborer, at $405,986. Four library employees, three at the New York Public Library and one at the Brooklyn Public Library, were reported at exactly $350,000, the federal pension earnings limit, so their actual pay was likely higher.

Among fire and police districts with at least 10 employees, the Hartsdale Fire District in Westchester County had the highest average pay, at $178,212 for 39 employees. Next were the Port Washington Police District on Long Island ($159,384 for 79 employees), where five officers were paid more than $285,000, and the Greenville Fire District in Westchester ($158,970 for 34).

Search every 2025-26 local payroll record on SeeThroughNY →

Methodology and Data Notes

The data in this report comes from payroll submissions by local governments outside New York City to the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS). It covers full-time and part-time employees enrolled in the pension system during fiscal year 2025-26, which ran from April 1, 2025, through March 31, 2026.

Pay figures generally include regular salary, overtime and pay for unused sick and vacation time. They do not include employer pension contributions, health insurance and other fringe benefits, which can add 35 percent or more to personnel costs.

The complete payroll records for all local governments covered in this report can be searched at the Empire Center's transparency website, SeeThroughNY.net.

Sources

• NYSLRS local government payroll data, fiscal year 2025-26
• Earnings limits, New York State Comptroller
• Northport Village Police Department, About Us
• Population: 2020 Census, as compiled by the Office of the State Comptroller