Ithaca’s employees were the highest-paid city employees in the region, according to the Empire Center’s 2015 “What They Make” report. Its general employees were paid an average of $44,041, and its uniformed police and fire employees averaged $82,726.

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.

Users can search the 175,327 pay records of town, city, county and village employees on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. The Southern Tier data also show:

• The village of Endicott paid its 51 uniformed police and fire employees an average of $82,507, more than any other village in the region.
• The town of Erwin had the highest average pay for town employees at $55,710, which was buoyed by the $123,467 paid to town manager Rita Y. McCarthy.
• Tompkins County’s 856 employees had the highest average pay among county employees at $48,597.

The ten highest-paid local government employees in the Southern Tier (Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, Schuyler, Steuben, Tioga and Tompkins Counties) were:

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.