Public employee salary

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Public employee salary information is provided by some state government transparency websites, such as Missouri's Accountability Portal. Some states, however, do not provide such information, even if a spending database is already in place. Such information is important to have, given the large salaries that many government employees receive.

Although the state itself may not provide employee information, some private organizations, such as newspapers or think-tanks, do make this information available. For example, the Asbury Park Press provides employee data for New Jersey.

November's Collaborative transparency project is to collect state employee salary information and make it available on this page. Each state page has a section entitled "Public employee salary information." Before you begin to hunt for a state's employee salary information, visit that state's page to see if there is any information available yet. Likewise, if you find salary information elsewhere, feel free to list it on the appropriate state page, not just on the list of states below.

This link provides a listing of state salary information. Help this collaborative project move forward by adding links from that link to each of the states below that still lack information.

In 2008, wages and benefits of $1.1 trillion accounted for half of total state and local government spending.[1]

An examination of data by the Cato Institute in January 2010 showed that the average quit rate in the state and local workforce in 2009 was just one-third the rate in the private sector, and found that outcome to suggest that state and local pay more than necessary to attract and retain qualified workers.

As a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, private sector job growth has seen a steep drop, while public sector jobs continue to increase. Government employment has increased by 590,000 while the private sector has lost nearly 8 million jobs since the beginning of the recession. After the passage of the Recovery Act, these trends have continued: the private sector has lost an additional 2.7 million jobs, or 2.5% of total private employment, while state and federal governments have continued to grow, adding an additional 400,000 jobs.[2]

[edit] Federal

Legistorm.com provides information on Congressional staff salaries. Users can seach by staffer name, Senator/Representative, committee, leadership office, administrative office, or state.

Data Universe provides a database of federal government employee salaries, searchabe by name, agency, job title, or location. The results show the adjusted base salary and any merit award. Employees involved in security work, the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, nuclear materials, IRS, and jobs essential to national security are excluded. The list contains most executive branch employees but does not cover the White House, Congress, the Postal Service, and independent agencies and commissions.

The Federal Judicial Center has a list of federal judicial salaries dated from 1789 here.

Federal government employees fall under the Federal Wage System (FWS) or General Schedule(GS).[3]

The FWS was established by Congress in 1972 and was developed to make the pay of Federal blue-collar workers comparable to prevailing private sector rates in each local wage area.[3] The FWS regular pay plan covers most trade, craft, and laboring employees in the executive branch.[3] The FWS does not cover Postal Service employees, legislative branch employees, or employees of private sector contracting firms.[3] Under the FWS, the government employer bases pay on what private industry is paying for comparable levels of work in that local wage area.[3]

These procedures are continually updated based on the advice of the Federal Prevailing Rate Advisory Committee (FPRAC), the statutory labor-management committee that advises the Director of OPM on the prevailing rate determination process. OPM defines the boundaries of wage areas, prescribes the required industries to be surveyed, the required job coverage for surveys, and designates a lead agency for each wage area. OPM has designated the Department of Defense as the lead agency for all FWS wage areas to improve the administration of the FWS and achieve economies of scale.

A total of 206,803 were employed under the Federal Wage System as of September 2001.[4]

Federal Wage System Employment by Agency[5]

Agency Number of Employees
Department of Defense
Department of the Air Force 48,639
Department of the Army 48,486
Department of the Navy 38,797
Other Defense Agencies 13,274
Department of Veterans Affairs 27,698
Department of the Interior 9,679
Department of Justice 5,444
Department of Agriculture 3,505
Department of Health and Human Services 2,432
Department of the Treasury 2,088
Department of Transportation 1,760
General Services Administration 1,690
Smithsonian Institution 881
Department of Commerce 544
Department of Energy 491
Social Security Administration 378
Armed Forces Retirement Home 221
Federal Emergency Management Agency 154
Broadcasting Board of Governors 129
International Boundary & Water Commission: U.S. and Mexico 103
Department of State 61
National Aeronautics and Space Administration 61
Executive Residence at the White House 36
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 30
Office of Personnel Management 28
Government Printing Office 24
Department of Labor 17
National Archives and Records Administration 17
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum 16
Environmental Protection Agency 15
Securities and Exchange Commission 12
Railroad Retirement Board 10
Federal Communications Commission 9
Executive Office of the President, Office of Administration 9
Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation 9
Federal Trade Commission 8
Department of Education 7
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 7
International Boundary Commission: U.S. and Canada 5
National Labor Relations Board 5
Department of Housing and Urban Development 4
Small Business Administration 4
U.S. Tax Court 3
Office of Management and Budget 1
Overseas Private Investment Corporation 1
Selective Service System 1
Total206,803

The GS scale applies to white-collar workers.[3] The 2010 GS Base Pay Schedule ranges from $17,803 to $129,517.[6] Employees who qualify as Senior Executive Service(SES), Senior Level(SL) and Scientific & Professional(ST) positions range from $119,554 to $179,700.[6] All U.S. locations receive additional pay adjustments above the base pay ranging from 14.16% to 35.15%.[6] Percentage Pay Adjustments by Geographic Locality

Location Percentage Pay Adjustment
Alaska 04.72%
Atlanta 19.29%
Boston 24.80%
Buffalo 16.98%
Chicago 25.10%
Cincinnati 18.55%
Cleveland 18.68%
Columbus 17.16%
Dallas 20.67%
Dayton16.24%
Denver22.52%
Detroit24.09%
Hawaii04.72%
Hartford25.82%
Houston28.71%
Huntsville16.02%
Indianapolis14.68%
Los Angeles27.16%
Miami20.79%
Milwaukee18.10%
Minneapolis20.96%
New York28.72%
Philadelphia21.79%
Phoenix16.79%
Pittsburgh16.37%
Portland20.35%
Raleigh17.64%
Richmond16.47%
Sacramento22.20%
San Diego24.19%
San Francisco35.15%
Seattle21.81%
Washington, D.C.24.22%
Rest of U.S. 14.16%

Pay increases Each January, the law provides for GS employees to receive a general across-the-board increase based on the 12-month increase (if any) in the Employment Cost Index (less 0.5 percentage points), plus an increase, if warranted, based on the local cost of labor for white-collar occupations in each of the 32 GS locality pay areas.[7]

[edit] Salary impact on state budgets

State and local governments employ some 20 million people nationwide. Employee compensation costs represent the largest set of expenditures in every state budget. Analyzing the fiscal dynamics of the civil service system reveals some of the most significant constraints and opportunities legislators confront in balancing state budgets.

Total state expenditures exceeded $2.2 trillion last year, of which wages and benefits amounted to $1.1 trillion.[8] Consequently, budgeting decisions related to at least 50 percent of all state budgets are driven by the wage provisions of civil service contracts and funding obligations for state workers’ health care and pension plans.

Labor costs also constitute a sizable proportion of private-sector business costs. But the average wages and benefits provided to public sector employees far exceed the rates paid by private employers. For example, the average hourly wage of public employees last year—$39.66—was 45 percent more than the average hourly wage of $27.42 paid in the private sector.[8]

States fulfill health care and pension obligations through direct contributions as well as investment earnings on those contributions. At its most fundamental, the formula for sustainability of health care and pension funds is: Contributions + Investments = Benefits + Expenses.

States’ recent investment losses, which exceeded $800 billion in 2008, have worsened the budgetary pressures of pension obligations. For example, the state of Illinois was forced to borrow $3.5 billion to meet its pension obligations, thereby incurring tens of millions of dollars in additional debt service costs. Estimates peg the total unfunded liabilities of state and local pension plans between $1 trillion and $3 trillion.[9]

Health care obligations likewise are sapping state budgets. Unlike the private sector, state and local governments have largely adopted “defined benefit” plans, under which specific types of services are assured. (In 2009, for example, defined benefit plans were provided to 84 percent of state and local workers compared to 21 percent of private-sector employees.[10]) The costs of defined benefit plans escalate annually. In contrast, “defined contribution” plans provide a fixed payment for pensions and thus in fully funding pensions. Moreover, public employees contribute far less to their health care coverage compared to workers in the private sector.

Demographics also are exacerbating the budgetary burden of the public-sector workforce. Current retirees leave work at an earlier age and live longer, thus drawing substantially more retiree health care and pension benefits than their predecessors. Currently, every private sector worker in America would have to pay $12,000 to support the current pension promises to public sector workers.[11] This figure does not include health benefits.

[edit] Public v. Private sector

The gap for compensation between federal and private sector workers has double in the past 9 years, with Federal employees being awarded larger bay and benefits increases than the private sector.[12]

Federal employees earned on average, between pay and benefits, $123,049 in 2009, while private workers made $61,051.[12] According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Federal employees earned $30,415 more than private sector jobs in 2000, but it has increased to $61,998 in 2009.[12] This reflects that Federal pay has increased 33 percent faster than inflation since 2000.[12]

In August of 2010, Obama ordered a freeze on bonuses for 2,900 political appointees, and gave 1.4% across-the-board pay hike in 2011 for the rest of the Federal workforce, the smallest raise in more than a decade.[12]

Difference in pay b/t Federal & Private Sector[12]
Job Federal Private Difference
Airline pilot, copilot, flight engineer $93,690 $120,012 -$26,322
Broadcast technician $90,310 $49,265 $41,045
Budget analyst $73,140 $65,532 $7,608
Chemist $98,060 $72,120 25,940
Civil Engineer $85,970 $76,184 $9,786
Clergy $70,460 $39,247 $31,213
Computer, information systems manager $122,020 $115,705 $6,315
Computer support specialist $45,830 $54,875 -$9,045
Cook $38,400 $23,279 $15,121
Crane, tower operator $54,900 $44,044 $10,856
Dental Assistant $36,170 $32,069 $4,101
Economist $101,020 $91,065 $9,955
Editors $42,210 $54,803 -$12,593
Electrical engineer $86,400 $84,653 $1,747
Financial analyst $87,400 $81,232 $6,168
Graphic designer $70,820 $46,585 $24,255
Highway maintenance worker $42,720 $31,376 $11,344
Laundry $33,100 $19,945 $13,155
Lawyer $123,660 $126,763 -$3,103
Librarian $76,110 $63,125 12,826
Locomotive engineer $48,440 $63,125 -$14,685
Machinist $51,530 $44,315 $7,215
Office Clerk $34,260 $29,863 $4,397
Optometrist $61,530 $106,665 $-$45,135
Paralegal $60,340 $48,890 $11,450
Pest Control $48,670 $33,675 $14,995
Physicians, surgeons $176,050 $177,102 -$1,052
Physician assistant $77,770 $87,783 -$10,013
Procurement clerk $40,640 $34,082 $6,558
Public relations manager $132,410 $88,241 $44,169
Recreation worker $43,630 $21,671 $21,959
Registered nurse $74,460 $63,780 $10,680
Respiratory therapist $46,740 $50,433 -$3,703
Secretary $44,500 $33,629 $10,671
Sheet metal worker $88,520 $78,065 $10,455
Statistician $88,520 $78,065 $10,455
Surveyor $78,710 $67,336 $11,374

State and local government employees make more than employees in the private sector by the hour.[1]

Average hourly wage
Compensation A. State and Local B. Private Sector Ratio A/B
Total Compensation $39.66 $27.42 1.45
Wages and salaries 26.01 19.39 1.34
Benefits 13.65 8.02 1.70
Paid leave 3.27 1.85 1.77
Supplemental pay 0.34 0.83 0.41
Health insurance 4.34 1.99 2.18
Defined-benefit pension 2.85 0.41 6.95
Defined-contribution pension 0.31 0.53 0.58
Other benefits 2.53 2.40 1.05
Difference by region[13]
Region Federal hrly wage Private sector hrly wage Union presence
Pacific $49.02 $30.70 64%
Middle Atlantic $48.53 $31.69 67%
New England $43.22 $33.29 57%
East North Central $43.00 $26.72 47%
Mountain $36.14 $26.18 21%
South Atlantic $34.90 $25.33 18%
East South Central $32.14 $20.76 16%
West North Central $32.00 $25.35 26%
West South Central $30.73 $24.35 13%

[edit] State public employee salaries

[edit] Alabama

Click here for salary information on Alabama's Directors and Heads of Departments.

Here is a directory on Alabama's state employees.

[edit] Alaska

Employee Directory for the state of Alaska.

A listing of the Alaska State payroll from January 2009 is posted here.

[edit] Arizona

Information about Arizona's state employee salaries is available here, including university salaries.

[edit] Arkansas

[edit] California

A page where the salaries of the governor's administration's top officials was launched on August 6, 2010.[16] The tab was added to the Reporting Transparency in California Government website. The site breaks down employees by name, agency, and job title and lists salaries from 2007, 2008, and 2009.

In August 2010, State Controller John Chiang announced he will require new reporting by cities and counties that will clearly identify salaries of public employees and elected officials. That information will then be posted on the Controllers Web site in November.[17]

The Los Angeles Daily News published this study of LA city employees salaries: SOARING $ALARIES: A TWO-PART SERIES, and offer this database of city employee pay. The Daily News also posted this Los Angeles Unified School District Salaries database.

The Sacramento Bee provides this Search for a state worker's salary database for 2007/2008.

[edit] Colorado

The Denver Post had a searchable database of Colorado State Employees, along with employees of many of the State Universities. Under pressure from state employees, this was removed, and it is stated that obtaining this information is now very difficult.[18]

The Colorado Association of Public Employees brought a bill to Assistant Majority Leader Sen. Lois Tochtrop seeking to exempt the records of particular employees' pay, and only permit access to aggregated salary information. Tochtrop is sponsoring the bill, known as Senate Bill 49. [19]

[edit] Connecticut

[edit] Delaware

Information about Delaware state employees is limited. However, you may find information here about certain teachers who at some point were paid more than $100,000 annually.

Additionally, click here for information on salaries paid to employees of the Delaware Psychiatric Center.

[edit] District of Columbia

[edit] Florida

[edit] Georgia

[edit] Hawaii

[edit] Idaho

[edit] Illinois

[edit] Indiana

Thanks to www.indystar.com, citizens have a public employee salary database available to them, found at this link.

Salaries of Purdue University employees are updated annually at High Ed Salaries.

The Better Government Association offers this database of selected public payrolls. The BGA database includes salaries of employees of the State of Indiana, the Indiana Inspector General, and the Indiana State Police.

[edit] Iowa

The Des Moines Register provides this searchable database for the 2005 fiscal year: Iowa State Salary Database.

Additionally, the Department of Administrative Services posts some salary data here.

[edit] Kansas

The Kansas City Star maintains a searchable database of state employee information for the year 2007. Access it here.

Kanview, the state government spending site, is by law required to include "salaries and wages including, but not limited to, compensation paid to individual employees of state agencies" and has done so since September 2009.

[edit] Kentucky

Kentucky's Open Door now provides salary information.

The Louisville Courier-Journal provides state employee salary information here.

The Herald Leader provides this database of salaries of state employees, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, and the University of Kentucky for the year 2006: Kentucky State Salary Database.

[edit] Louisiana

See also: Louisiana state employee salaries

[edit] Maine

[edit] Maryland

[edit] Massachusetts

The Boston Herald has this list of state payroll information: Massachusetts 2009 State Employee Payroll

The Boston Globe found in August 2008 that bonuses boost council staff pay.

[edit] Michigan

LSJ.com, a Michigan newspaper, offers this resource for searching public payrolls: State of Michigan salary search.

Another Michigan news source, MLive.com, has done an extensive series of articles about public school instructor's pay which includes salary databases. See the whole Teacher Pay series here.

University of Michigan employees' salaries are published annually by the University library: Faculty and staff salary record. A number of organizations republish this data in various forms, including High Ed Salaries.

[edit] Minnesota

[edit] Mississippi

State of Mississippi Management and Reporting System shows information on the State Budget, State Property, Revenues, Vendors, and State Employees.

[edit] Missouri

The Missouri Accountability Portal provides information about state employees pay. Users can view pay information about the employees of the State of Missouri by their Agency of employment, Position Title or Employee Name. The provides gross pay amounts by the last pay cycle and year to date.

The Better Government Association offers this database of selected public payrolls. The BGA database includes salaries of employees of the State of Missouri.

[edit] Montana

The Montana state employee directory is available here.

[edit] Nebraska

[edit] Nevada

[edit] New Hampshire

State of New Hampshire Employee salaries:

2007 [2] 2008 [3]

University System of New Hampshire employee salaries:

2007 [4] 2008 [5]


The 2008 municipal wage, salary and benefit data is available here http://www.nhmunicipal.org/LGCWebSite/HumanResources/wage_salary_benefits.htm

The state has a lot of information in its Human Resources site here http://admin.state.nh.us/hr/ but it’s not neatly arranged in intelligible table suitable for posting.

If anyone would like to help with that task, just contact the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers.

[edit] New Jersey

[edit] New Mexico

[edit] New York

[edit] North Carolina

[edit] North Dakota

[edit] Ohio

[edit] Oklahoma

State employee salary information is available at Oklahoma OpenBooks.

Information about Oklahoma's state employee salaries, current as of July 2008, is available here, thanks to the work of www.tulsaworld.com.

[edit] Oregon

The Statesmen Journal has a database of state employee salary information available here. However, the data are from 2007 and not easily searchable.

Another, more valuable resource is GovDocs, [20] a project of the Oregon Politico newspaper which lists all Oregon State employee salary information supplied by the State of Oregon as public record. This information is current as of May 31st, 2010 and is available in a searchable database [21]. It lists the employee’s full name, employer, annualized insurance and retirement benefits, annualized salary, and total annual compensation in a format that allows users to arrange the information according to preference. Additionally, GovDocs provides searchable databases of lobbying expenditures of organizations and individuals [22].

[edit] Pennsylvania

[edit] Rhode Island

[edit] South Carolina

Information about South Carolina employees who earn less than $50,000 per year is limited, by statute, to figures that are rounded.

The State publishes a database of South Carolina government employee salary information. Users can search by a partial name, a partial agency name, or all employees in an agency. It also has handy lists of employees earning more than $150,000 and $100,000, along with the top 5 highest-paid employees by agency.

[edit] South Dakota

The Argus Leader in South Dakota is providing this Interactive State Salaries database. It is searchable and current as of June 2007.

[edit] Tennessee

The Bristol Herald Courier performed a salary survey of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee, and published the results here.

The "Open Government for the State of Tennessee" transparency site provides a searchable database of state employees' salaries.

[edit] Texas

[edit] Utah

The Salt Lake Tribune is building up a database of state employee salaries here.

[edit] Vermont

The Burlington Free Press provides this State of Vermont Employee Wages Database.

[edit] Virginia

The Bristol Herald Courier performed a salary survey of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee, and published the results here.

Every year the Mace and Crown, the student newspaper at Old Dominion University, publishes salaries of administrative and faculty employees at ODU. As of October 2008, the latest set of data (March 2008) is available at this website in PDF, Excel, and Text format. Typically when the Mace comes out with new figures, it is posted on the Mace website at maceandcrown.com.

[edit] Washington

One man by the name of Louis Bloom has assembled (via FOIA) a very thorough listing of 2007 Washington State Employees, Job Title and Salaries. He also has lists from 1996-2007, but has declined to post anything since 2007. He now has 2009 figures posted on his site. The King County information is only available as an Excel spreadsheet download however.

The Washington Office of Financial Management posts on its webpage the Personnel Detail Report which provides salary and other employment information for each employee in all state agencies for 2009.[23]

[edit] West Virginia

The Herald Dispatch has this WV State Employees Pay Database.

[edit] Wisconsin

The Journal Sentinel has made public employee salary information available.

A list of salaries of Wisconsin state employees from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Wyoming

[edit] Additional resources & reading

[edit] References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Employee Compensation in State and Local Governments
  2. West Virginia Watchdog, WatchBlog: Government Employment Increases, Private Sector Tanks, July 6, 2010
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Federal Wage System Facts
  4. Federal Wage System Employment by Agency
  5. Federal Wage System Employment by Agency
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 2010 General Schedule Pay Scale
  7. [1]
  8. 8.0 8.1 US Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 6.2D. Compensation of Employees by Industry, August 20, 2009
  9. Government Accountability Office, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT RETIREE HEALTH BENEFITS, November 2009
  10. American Economic Association (AEA), WILL PUBLIC SECTOR RETIREE HEALTH BENEFIT PLANS SURVIVE? ECONOMIC AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF UNFUNDED LIABILITIES, January 2009
  11. Watchdog, Despite gains, public pensions crashing, July 2010
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 USA Today, Federal workers earning double their private counterparts, Aug. 10, 2010
  13. Cato, Employee Compensation in State and Local Government
  14. Database of Arkansas government employees paid more than $200,000 in 2007
  15. 2008 salary survey of county employees in Arkansas
  16. http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=89843&catid=2 "News10 Article" Governor launches state officials salary webpage/
  17. http://www.publicceo.com/index.php/local-governments/151-local-governments-publicceo-exclusive/1791-controller-requires-cities-and-counties-report-salaries/ Article on CA local/city online transparency.
  18. "Colo. Salaries for Elected Officials. Want To Find Out What They Are? Good Luck.", Expat Exlawyer, March 12, 2010.
  19. CORA change would mask employee pay, Politics West, January 8, 2009
  20. GovDocs.http://theoregonpolitico.com/govdocs/
  21. Salary Database.http://theoregonpolitico.com/govdocs/state/salaries/?agency_name=&class_title=&first_name=&last_name=&total=&campaign=1&page=1
  22. Lobbyist Expenditures. http://theoregonpolitico.com/govdocs/lobby/organizational-spending/?years=&org_name=&total=&campaign=1&page=1/
  23. Washington OFM Personnel Detail Report
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