In 1950, the four highest paid city of Utica employees made $9,000 each.

That’s the equivalent of $87,340 in 2013.

Today, the city’s highest paid employee is police Chief Mark Williams, who earned $130,145 in 2012-13.

While Williams’ salary is considerably higher than the average area salary, he isn’t the area’s highest paid public employee, according to data from an annual report published by the Empire Center for New York State Policy.

Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara takes the top spot with a salary of $146,423, followed by his Herkimer County counterpart, District Attorney Jeffrey Carpenter, who was paid $139,762.

Salaries and benefits that accompany them are one of a municipality’s largest expenses, and over the years, contractually required raises have caused payrolls around the state to balloon.

“Local government is about service delivery,” said E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center. “So, the cost is how many people you employ and what they make.”

Fewer workers

Compared to other areas of the state, most Mohawk Valley public employees are paid less, and the area has fewer public employees.

But overall, as the number of local workers has decreased, the public payroll has continued to grow.

* Of the seven cities in the seven-county Mohawk Valley, only Rome’s payroll was less last year than it was in 2008-09.

8 Every city, as well as Oneida and Herkimer counties, cut employees in the last five years, but in several cities, the number of employees exceeds pre-recession levels.

* Mohawk Valley city employees make less than their counterparts across the state and the area has fewer city employees than anywhere except the North Country and Long Island.

* Utica has the most city employees in the seven-county region but ranks fifth in pay. Utica’s public safety employees, however, are the highest paid.

* The area also has the fewest county employees, who make roughly $5,000 less than their closest counterparts in the North Country.

Oneida County has made an effort to keep its payroll down by cutting positions and looking at consolidation, said county Executive Anthony Picente.

The county, however, has to provide services that smaller municipalities don’t, which makes it more difficult to consolidate, Picente said.

“Obviously, I’ve tried to reduce the workforce over the last few years,” he said.

For 2013, the county budgeted $64.78 million for salaries. That doesn’t include overtime, health insurance, pensions or other benefits.

When those are taken into account, payroll and benefits take up to a third of the county’s budget.

What does it mean?

Over the past five years, the area’s municipal payrolls have dropped in size while pay has gone up slightly.

Some municipalities might have cut too much in the past and now are adding jobs, said Frank Mauro, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Even though the number of employees is down, payroll will go up because of inflation, Mauro said.

“A dollar today doesn’t buy what a dollar did 10 years ago,” he said.

The best way to keep payrolls and associated costs from continuing to grow is to reform the state’s arbitration process that can award raises to unions without taking into consideration those other costs, McMahon said.

In the meantime, municipalities must rely on successful contract negotiations to keep payroll costs down.

In Utica, which is down to approximately 510 employees this year, the doing more-with-less mantra has brought its benefits and drawbacks, Mayor Robert Palmieri said.

“We’re much more efficient,” he said. “But with less overtime to work with, some things don’t get done as quickly.”

The city is in contract negotiations with two of its four unions.

Palmieri would not comment on negotiations but said that in general, neither side was likely to get what it wanted.

“In the Fire Department, they took zero (raises) in their last contract,” he said. “They’re not going to take zeroes forever.”

© 2013 Utica Observer-Dispatch