CONTACT: Lise Bang-Jensen

(518) 434-3100

Payroll records for 7,449 employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have been posted on SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s government transparency web site for taxpayers. The new data includes names, titles, locations, base pay rates and total pay received for those employees in 2009.

The Authority’s top earner was executive director Christopher Ward, who earned $304,494 in total pay. Ward was the only Port Authority employee to brake the $300,00 mark. Newly posted data also includes payroll information for:

  • The 9 employees who earned more than $250,000;
  • The 54 employees who earned more than $200,000;
  • The 404 employees who earned more than $150,000; and
  • The 2,634 employees who earned more than $100,000.

Total payroll spending in 2009 was $664.7 million, $15.1 million more than in 2008.

SeeThroughNY allows the public to examine government expenditures on the Internet. It includes the wages of more than 1.5 million employees of New York State government, public authorities, cities, counties, villages, towns and school districts. Also posted are teacher and school superintendent employment contracts for 733 school districts, state legislators’ office expenditures, pork barrel projects, and a benchmarking feature for comparing local government and school district spending. The site was launched July 31, 2008.

(A table listing the 55 highest-paid employees of the Port Authority is available here.)

You may also like

Six-figure NYSLRS pensions quadruple in ten years

The number of New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) retirees eligible for six-figure pensions quadrupled over the last seven years. Read More

Average Pay Spiked Last Year at Some NY Public Authorities

ALBANY, NY — 2021 for 82,513 New York public authority employees working at 320 different agencies is newly posted on , the Empire Center’s transparency website. The site now contains 2021 payroll data for a total of 172,947 emplo Read More

Average Pay Spiked at Port Authority in 2021

Average pay for Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) employees increased nearly 10 percent last year, to $123,000. Read More

Over 700 MTA Employees Earned More in OT than Regular Pay in 2021, Data Show

More than 300 employees were paid at least $100,000 in overtime and at least 734 earned more in overtime than in regular pay at the MTA last year Read More

Legislative Spending Unevenly Divided Among Members

Spending by state lawmakers on office personnel and administrative costs varies widely, with some paying out nearly twice as much as others Read More

State OT, Salaries Up in 2021

Overtime pay for state employees rose to nearly $1 billion, and salaries increased by six percent during the 2021 calendar year, according to data posted today to SeeThroughNY.net Read More

Public School Retiree Pensions Set New Record

Average pension benefits for newly retired public educators outside New York City reached a record high last year Read More

Most Long Island Educators Paid at Least $100,000 Last Year

18% of all public-school teachers and administrators employed by school districts outside New York City were paid over $100,000 last year Read More