A small Long Island village had the highest-paid group of local government employees last year, according to the Empire Center’s 2015 “What They Make” report.
The village of Lloyd Harbor’s 12 police officers were paid an average of $187,973. A total of 175,327 records, detailing $9.31 billion in pay, were examined for the report, and are now searchable on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website.
The data also show Peter F. Brower, the now-retired Ramapo police chief, was the highest-paid local government employee outside New York City last year. He was paid $369,088.
Forty of the 50 highest-paid local government employees were police officers. Twenty-four of them worked for Nassau County.
Notable findings from each region can be found here: Capital, Central New York, Finger Lakes, Long Island, Mid-Hudson, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Southern Tier and Western New York.
The report uses pay data reported to the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015. The amounts listed in the report do not include fringe benefits such as health insurance or employer pension contributions, which can add 35 percent or more to the cost for taxpayers.
The Empire Center is a non-partisan, non-profit independent think tank based in Albany. SeeThroughNY includes payroll and pension data for state and local government employees and retirees; detailed expenditure data for the state Legislature; comparative statistics on local government spending; a searchable database of state revenue and expenditures; and copies of all teacher union contracts and superintendent of schools contracts.
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