Provides look at true cost of providing government services

How much does a cop make? How about the guy plowing your road or helping you fill out forms at the town clerks’s office?

If you want to know, it’s a mouseclick or two away.

See Through New York, a database operated by the non-profit Empire Center for Public Policy, recently updated its figures giving data for employees’ salaries through the fiscal year ending in 2009. In the City of Hornell, that is the 2008-09 fiscal year that ended March 31. In Steuben County and local town governments, that fiscal year ends Dec. 31.

To learn when a municipality’s fiscal year ends, contact the appropriate town, county or village clerk’s office.

The information is acquired from the state, the Web site states, adding the information is reported annually to the Office of state Comptroller directly from the municipalities during the annual budget adoption process.

The report is divided up by municipality.

In the City of Hornell, there are 112 paid employees, with 42 of those employed in the Hornell Police Department or Hornell Fire Department. The top earner in the City of Hornell is the mayor, Shawn Hogan. Hogan took home $87,894.30 in the year, according to the Web site. the other highest-paid officials are senior staff of the city Department of Public Safety.

Of the employees, 64 earn more than $50,000 a year, while the top seven earners are paid more than $75,000 a year.

Public safety salaries take up a major portion of the city’s budget, accounting for $2.87 million, or 26.89-percent of the city’s $10.66 million budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which covers the salaries listed in the database.

Only two city employees out of the top 30-highest paid staffers do not work in the Department of Public Safety, and the lowest-paid public safety officer — a firefighter — made $44,806.51.

City firefighters were the only group of city employees to receive a raise this year, according to previous reports from Hornell City Hall, as all others, including the police union, signed new contracts that did not include a pay raise. Firefighter raises will be discussed in the next contract negotiation, as the four-year deal currently in effect expires March 31, 2010.

Information for other municipalities also is available for download.

In the City of Corning, for example, the highest-paid employee of the city’s 145 employees is Mark Ryckman, the city administrator. The appointed position pays $103,463.52.

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