The number of school district employees receiving a total compensation of more than $200,000 have more than doubled since 2019, according to new salary data posted today at SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website. The public educator pay data are based on Fiscal Year 2023-24 salary information reported to New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS), which covers 239,254 public school teachers and administrators employed outside New York City. The data posted, also includes pay records for 139,121 school district employees, who are members of the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS).

A total of 75,056 school district employees received six figure compensation – representing nearly one-third (31.3%) of NYSTRS educators. Out of these, 81 educators received more than $300,000, and 1,688 received more than $200,000. The majority (76 percent) of those employees who received six-figure compensation were employed in downstate suburban districts, including 33,834 on Long Island and 18,622 in Westchester, Orange, and Rockland counties.

Benjamin Ciuffo, a now retired Assistant Superintendent at the Jericho Union Free School District received the highest total pay of $599,524. Among the upstate regions, Timothy Backus, who recently retired as the Deputy Superintendent at South Colonie Central School District, topped the list with a total pay of $443,517.

Top Ten

The average for full-time employees – defined here as any employee paid more than the annualized lowest statewide minimum wage – during the 2023-2024 school year was $94,732. Full-time employees on Long Island and in the Mid-Hudson region earned the highest average pay at $116,066 and $110,830 respectively. Further upstate, the Western New York Region was the highest paying region ($81,891); the lowest paying region was the North Country ($71,127).

Full-time NYSTRS members in 202 school districts averaged more than $100,000 in pay – the highest being Scarsdale Union Free School District ($149,705), where nearly 90 percent of its 530 educators received over $100,000.

FTE Average Pay by School District

Contracts between school districts and their teachers and superintendents, detailing compensation and other terms and conditions of employment, are also available on SeeThroughNY. The Empire Center earlier published the median pay for teachers in New York during school year 2023-24.

The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family. 

Notes: 

1. The records reflect pay during the fiscal year ending June 30 for teachers, administrators and other members of the state Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) and March 31 for employees belonging to the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS). Pay figures do not reflect the cost of employee benefits such as health coverage and pensions. They do not include school personnel who were paid by the district while also collecting a public pension. 
2. The data refers to all the payments made to NYSTRS members during the school year. This includes several instances of multiple payments received by many NYSTRS members, who are not likely working on a full-time basis. 
3. Since the data we receive does not indicate whether an employee is full-time or not, we conservatively estimated average pay for full-time employees by assuming that any NYSTRS members who received total pay during the year equal to or greater than the annualized minimum wage rate were full-time employees.