The Empire Center for Public Policy today released the 2014 edition of “What They Make,” an overview of local government payrolls for the counties, towns, cities and villages (outside New York City) for the period of April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014.

The Center’s analysis revealed:

• 1,803 local government employees were paid more than the statutory salary of Governor Andrew Cuomo ($179,000).
• Westchester County had the highest pay for both general (non-police) county employees and county police, who averaged $76,652 and $184,865, respectively.
• The highest-paid local government employee was Charles E. Ewald, a jail warden who was paid $414,527 by Suffolk County. A total of nine local government employees were paid more than $300,000.
• Forty-seven of the state’s 50 highest-paid local employees, all of whom took home more than $250,000 in 2013-14, were employees of a police department or sheriff’s office.
• The Long Beach Police Department had 11 employees on the 50 highest-paid list.
• The 22 police officers of the village of Kings Point were the highest-paid group of local government employees in the state, receiving an average pay of $196,143.

The report includes:

• Regional rankings of average pay for county, city, town and village employees.
• Lists of the highest-paid local government employees in each region.
• A list of the 50 highest-paid local government employees in the state.
• Regional highlights: Capital Region, Central New York, Finger Lakes, Long Island, Mid-Hudson, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Southern Tier and Western New York.

The amounts listed in the report do not include fringe benefits such as health insurance or pension contributions, which can add more than 35 percent to the cost for taxpayers.

“The Empire Center produces this report because it is committed to protecting the right of taxpayers to know how their money is being spent,” said Executive Director Tim Hoefer. “Employee compensation is the single largest component of most municipal budgets. Pairing this pay data with the localized spending data in SeeThroughNY’s Benchmarking NY tool, taxpayers can get a real sense of how their local governments are spending their tax dollars.”

The Empire Center is an independent, non-partisan, 501(c)3 think tank based in Albany. Each year, the Empire Center obtains and processes payroll information from public employers across the state. Click here to read the full report. The Benchmarking New York tool, as well as individual payroll records, are posted at the Empire Center’s transparency website SeeThroughNY.net.

Media Contact:

Ken Girardin
kgirardin@empirecenter.org
518-434-3100