The Empire Center is out with its latest list of public employee salaries across the state, with an updated data base of cities, towns and counties outside of New York City.

There’s a lot of disparity in the pay, as evidenced by the tables, but it looks like downstate fire and police employees are almost uniformly doing well, with lots of chiefs earning more than a quarter million dollars per year — before fringe benefits which can easily add another 40 percent.

This data base doesn’t include one of the other big expenses, schools, but Gov. Cuomo has in the past pointed out that lots of superintendents earn more than he does, we wonder if he’ll criticize the high police and fire salaries during the State of the State of budget presentation. Some of the communities with these salaries are also in deep financial distress — Ramapo where this year’s top earner, Police Chief Peter Brower took in more than $320,000 is in hard-pressed Rockland County.

And the financial problems facing Yonkers, which boast some of the highest salaries for both uniformed and non-uniformed employees are well documented…..

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