The percentage of workers in local government earning more than $100,000 jumped 14 percent over the past five years, a review of state records showed.

But at the same time, the total number of employees in New York’s roughly 3,000 municipalities and authorities fell 5 percent. Total earnings stayed flat over that stretch, the records from the state Comptroller’s Office showed.

The data showed how local governments have been leery of adding new staff amid uncertain fiscal times and limited tax revenue.

Yet with fewer employees, it has meant higher salaries in some cases for the ones who have stayed on, mainly through pay raises as part of union contracts.

Total employment by local governments dropped from 367,000 to 350,000 from 2013 to 2017, but the average salary rose from $45,949 to $48,095.

The number of workers earning more than $100,000 nearly topped 30,000 last year.

Who earned the most?

The top salaries are dominated by executives and doctors at public hospitals.

In fact, the top 15 local earners and 33 of the top 50 last year worked for public hospitals in the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Thomas Quatroche Jr. was the highest-paid employee of local government in the state. The president and CEO of the Erie County Medical Center earned $820,977.

Ranking third at $546,413 was Kara Bennorth, the executive vice president and chief administrative officer at the Westchester Medical Center.

Outside the healthcare field, the top earners were from the Ramapo police department in Rockland County. Chief Brad Weidel earned $369,412, while Capt. Martin Reilly earned $364,671. Six other officers in the department earned more than $250,000 in the 20116-17 fiscal year.

In 2017-18 fiscal year, which ended March 31, Thomas Cokeley, a Ramapo town police captain, was paid $323,562 — the most of any local government employee in New York, according to a report Monday by the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany.

The data shows earnings information includes salary, overtime pay, vacation payouts and other compensation for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2017.

Local top earners

In Monroe County, the highest paid was Bill Carpenter, the head of the Rochester-Genesee Regional Transporation Authority, who earned $251,000 last year.

That was followed by District Attorney Sandra Doorley, who earned nearly $200,000 as district attorneys in New York have received raises in recent years on par with raises for state judges.

After her, the next five highest earners either worked at the RGRTA or the Monroe County Water Authority, led by the latter’s executive director, Nick Noce, at $197,000, the records showed.

Former Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks works at RGRTA and makes more than she did as county executive.

Brooks, who left office in 2015, earned $133,000 last year, while County Executive Cheryl Dinolfo earned $125,000.

In Broome County, Kevin Drumm, the community college president, earned $229,800 The Broome District Attorney Stephen Cornwell earned $188,000.

In Dutchess County, the top earner last year was District Attorney William Grady at $182,000.

You may also like

SUNY Prez Top Paid Government Worker In Warren Co.

A Schenectady County employee was the Capital Region’s highest-paid municipal government worker during the state’s 2019 fiscal year, according to the latest edition of “What They Make,” the Empire Center’s annual report summarizing total local government pay. Read More

Top-paid public-sector workers in region are mostly in Schenectady County

Seven of the 10 highest-paid municipal employees in the eight-county Capital Region worked for Schenectady County, the Empire Center for Public Policy noted.  While the individual salary numbers have been previously reported for the seven men — a child protective services caseworker, a doctor, a lawyer, three law enforcement officers and an economic developer — the report released Wednesday ranks them in comparison to the other counties outside New York City. Read More

Long Island town and city payrolls in 2018

E.J. McMahon, research director of the Albany-based Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank, said contractual employee raises from collective bargaining agreements and civil service laws likely played a major role in rising costs. The agreements "produce steady increases over time, based mainly on seniority and oblivious to local economic or fiscal pressures," McMahon said.  Read More

The access is there to see how much public employees make

Once upon a time, anyone who wanted to know what local government employees were paid had to pick the right meeting to go to and hope the board didn’t go into executive session, or file a Freedom of Information Act request and wait. Enter the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More

Ramapo cops lead Rockland’s top government salaries; check the database

Ramapo police officers who cashed in some of their accrued time found themselves among the top salary earners in Rockland and among state workers during 2017. Read More

New York’s best-paid public employees are Long Island cops

Crime-fighting pays! Nearly all of the best-paid public employees in New York state are police officers, according to a new report released by the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More

Football coaches among highest paid state employees

Education pays–especially if you’re a top administrator, medical staffer or football coach at New York’s public colleges and affiliated hospitals. Read More

Gov. Cuomo earned mere $179G salary last year — with 3,500 state workers taking home bigger pay

Gov. Cuomo is the state’s top elected official, but he’s far from being the highest paid state worker. Read More

Empire Center Logo Enjoying our work? Sign up for email alerts on our latest news and research.
Together, we can make New York a better place to live and work!