Boosted in many cases by enormous overtime totals, the average pay of employees at the bi-state Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is among the highest found in any of the region’s large public-sector employers, as reflected in 2013 payroll records posted today at SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website.  The new data include names, titles, locations, base pay and total pay received for those employees.

As in previous years, the latest annual Port Authority (PA) payroll reflects extraordinarily high pay levels, even by the elevated metro New York City government standards.  For example:

• the 7,401 individuals who worked for the PA in 2013 had average pay of $98,854
• nearly half of all of PA employees (46 percent of the total) were paid $100,000 or more
• 221 employees took home more than $200,000, including eight whose pay topped $300,000
• the highest-paid PA employee was Andrew Kurpat, a police officer, who was paid $330,856.

Eighty-three of the 100 highest-paid PA employees in 2013 worked for the PA Police Department, which comprised nearly 20 percent of the total payroll. The average pay of the 1,477 PA police officers came to $124,467 – boosted by an average of $44,834 in overtime and other extra pay. PA police officers’ average pay was up 21 percent over the 2008 level.

Overtime and other extras boosted the average pay of the PA’s 148 police sergeants by $90,430, bringing their average total to $185,017. The PA’s 71 police lieutenants averaged $99,230 in overtime and other extra pay, boosting their average total pay to $209,361.

But substantial overtime and other pay extras were not limited to PA police. As shown in the attached list, 50 job titles received extra pay averaging between $29,316 to $111,487 — enough, in over three-quarters of these cases, to boost a five-figure salary into six figures.  For example, the authority’s 42 general maintenance supervisors received average extra pay of $39,220, boosting their total average salary from $92,337 to $131,557.

Lists of the 100 highest-paid Port Authority employees and of the job titles with the most extra pay in 2013 are can be downloaded here.

SeeThroughNY allows the public to examine government expenditures on the Internet. In addition to public-employee payrolls for New York State and New York City government, counties, municipalities and school districts throughout the state, and dozens of public authorities, also posted are pension data for former state and local governments and school district employees; state legislator office expenditures, legislative “member-item” spending, a benchmarking feature for comparing local government and school district spending, and a tool for exploring the State budget. The site was launched July 31, 2008.