Friday, May 12, 2006
Public Safety Pay Hits City and County
The Pittsburgh Business Times has once again released its “50 Highest Paid Employees” for Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh. The listings do not cover authorities, so that leaves off folks working at PAT, the URA, and others, and compensation includes the pay made from overtime, premium pay, sick and personal days, etc.
Every member on the Top 50 list for the City came from either the Police Department (4 people), Emergency Services (7 people), or the Fire Bureau (39 people). The highest earner came from the EMS at over $145,000 in compensation. When one considers the starting salaries for these departments, they realize the power of public safety employees to win significant benefits under the state’s binding arbitration law, Act 111. There can be no other explanation when public safety employees are making earnings well in excess of other elected and appointed City officials.
It is a bit of a different picture in the Top 50 for the County—only 20 out of the 50 that made the list came from either the County Police or the Sheriff’s office. Of course, the County does not have a professional fire department to negotiate with like the City does. In fact, the top earner for the County made less than three people from the City’s list, two of those from the fire department.
It is also interesting to note that none of the Top 50 on the City’s list (once again, all public safety workers) made less than $104,000 in 2005, while over 40 in the County—including a lot of department heads—did.
In short, 70 percent of the Top 100 wage earners in the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County were public safety employees. Yet they only account for about one-fourth of the total employment of the City and County governments.
Every member on the Top 50 list for the City came from either the Police Department (4 people), Emergency Services (7 people), or the Fire Bureau (39 people). The highest earner came from the EMS at over $145,000 in compensation. When one considers the starting salaries for these departments, they realize the power of public safety employees to win significant benefits under the state’s binding arbitration law, Act 111. There can be no other explanation when public safety employees are making earnings well in excess of other elected and appointed City officials.
It is a bit of a different picture in the Top 50 for the County—only 20 out of the 50 that made the list came from either the County Police or the Sheriff’s office. Of course, the County does not have a professional fire department to negotiate with like the City does. In fact, the top earner for the County made less than three people from the City’s list, two of those from the fire department.
It is also interesting to note that none of the Top 50 on the City’s list (once again, all public safety workers) made less than $104,000 in 2005, while over 40 in the County—including a lot of department heads—did.
In short, 70 percent of the Top 100 wage earners in the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County were public safety employees. Yet they only account for about one-fourth of the total employment of the City and County governments.
