The City of Pittsburgh hired more employees than it lost in 2022, reversing a recent trend and marking a new phase in pandemic recovery. 

The city employed 3,462 full-time employees last year, according to pay data that PublicSource obtains and examines annually. There were 369 new hires and 350 people left city jobs during the year. 

“We continue to push to have all staffing levels in the administration properly filled,” said city press secretary Olga George. “We hope that the data is a proper indicator of stabilization of the workforce in the city.”

Michael Lamb, who has been the city controller through financial downturn, state oversight and the COVID pandemic, said the fact that the city hired more workers than it lost “is a step in the right direction.”

Mayor Ed Gainey made public works a special focus during his first year in office, a move that is reflected in the hiring data: The Department of Public Works hired 109 people in 2022, offsetting 78 departures. 

The city’s budget, meanwhile, is partially kept afloat by federal pandemic relief funds — including tens of millions annually for personnel. That pool of money will be gone after 2024.

The one glaring outlier was the Bureau of Police. Recruitment was paused under former Mayor Bill Peduto in 2020, a move that is still felt today, with virtually no uniformed officers joining the force in 2022 (10 administrative hires were made). Ninety employees left the bureau last year, mostly uniformed officers, as union officials and city councilors sounded the alarm over depleted police numbers. 

18 departments grew, 7 shrank

The onset of the pandemic in 2020 triggered a citywide hiring freeze, leading to a few years of decreasing numbers in numerous departments. The city lost a net of 578 workers in 2020 as some departments shifted to remote work and others toiled in person through the pandemic to keep the city functioning. In 2021, as offices reopened and federal American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA] money fended off possible budget cuts, the city still struggled to fill its staff as the work world continued to evolve in the COVID era. The city lost 237 more workers than it hired that year.

2022’s numbers are a reversal, which city leaders hope spells more stable days ahead. Most departments remained relatively stable in 2022, with gains or losses in the single digits. The Department of Permits, License and Inspections saw a net increase of 12 employees and the Bureau of Fire gained one.

The healthy hiring coincided with a positive year for the city’s revenue streams, at least relative to the downturn brought by COVID-19. The pandemic shutdowns of 2020 and the behavioral changes that came with them had slashed the city’s intake from parking fees and the entertainment tax. Those are on the rebound, and Lamb said in April that growth in real estate and income tax revenues is further signal that the city is moving toward calm financial waters.

“I think everybody, whether it’s the private or public sector, is finally getting back to normal levels,” Lamb said, though he cautioned that the city still has many vacancies. “We still need to have more employees.”

The mayor’s office estimated that there are now 371 vacancies in the city government, mostly in public works and the police.

There’s a speed bump ahead that could threaten the city’s finances and hiring: The city’s $335 million pot of COVID-19 relief money from the federal government is set to run out by the end of 2024. While some of the ARPA funding has been used on discretionary projects, the city has allocated more than $30 million per year in 2021, 2022 and 2023 to support operations including payroll. 

City leaders are banking on revenues continuing to rise to offset the end of that pool of money, but a possible decline in property tax revenue due to a recent wave of appeals could undermine that projection.

George said the city expects to overcome those challenges. “The city has conducted a five-year financial forecast and has factored in the positions funded by ARPA into our budget plans and will be able to fully maintain the positions created,” she said.

Police roster dropped to 871

The Bureau of Police had, as usual, the largest payroll in the city last year at $102 million, including bonuses and overtime. That number is almost even with 2021, as declining officer counts resulting in lower salary payouts were offset in part by an increase in overtime pay from $7.9 million to $9.3 million. 

Police pay is expected to rise in 2023 and beyond, though, as the city recently entered into a new contract with the officers’ union that gives officers, particularly newer ones, big raises in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.

Base pay for first-year officers under the new contract, for example, will start at $65,000, up from just under $50,000 in the 2022 budget. 

The new contract prompted City Council to increase the police budget by $6 million — not a city-shattering sum, but enough to make any future budget strain more difficult.

With no infusion of recruits last year, the department’s longtime diversity issues remained: 84% of its employees were white, overrepresenting the city’s 64% white population, and 82% of police employees were men. 

City paid $18.4 million for overtime

Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt earned the highest base salary of all city employees ($144,869) after being promoted to that role early in the year. Ten employees earned higher base salaries than Mayor Ed Gainey, who earned $124,657. 

The city’s new police chief, Larry Scirotto, will far surpass those figures with a $180,000 base salary.

In all, 141 employees earned base pay of $100,000 or more. The city had a bit more gender parity among highly paid workers than its workforce overall. Women accounted for 21% of city workers but 31% of those making six figures. 

As in past years, numerous first responders logged tens of thousands of dollars in overtime pay. Jerome Wasek, an EMS crew chief since 1997, topped the list with $180,085 in overtime pay, which was more than double his base salary. The city’s total overtime costs last year were not far off from recent totals of $20 million in 2020 and $16 million in 2021.

Scott Schubert, the city’s former police chief who left that job last year, took home $100,000 more than his annual base salary in 2022 despite working just half the year — for a total of $244,000. George said the increased payout was for vacation time and personal time Schubert earned during his 30 years in the police bureau. 

The racial breakdown of the city’s employees is not much different from the city’s population overall — although white residents are a bit overrepresented. But median salaries are another story. Black employees earned a median salary of $52,383 last year, fully $20,000 below the overall median salary. 

This imbalance can be traced to the Bureau of Police, a large, overwhelmingly white department that also pays better than any department other than the Office of the Mayor. The Department of Public Works, which has the city’s highest concentration of Black employees at 42%, has a median salary of $45,701.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Lucas Dufalla.

The post City of Pittsburgh employee roster up, but built on waning pandemic funding appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Update (6/13/23): County Executive Rich Fitzgerald vetoed county council’s bill to raise the wage floor for county employees Tuesday, saying the measure would violate the county’s Home Rule Charter and that big raises for seasonal workers would cause financial problems for the county.

Minutes later, Council President Pat Catena told PublicSource he expects to schedule a vote to override the veto for June 20.

“Ultimately, this veto is about the separation of powers set up in the county’s Home Rule Charter,” Fitzgerald wrote in letter to council. “When this government was set up and approved by the voters, it did not give the legislative body the authority to set pay rates.”

Council and its solicitor have taken a conflicting view that the charter does in fact grant them the power to set wages.

While Fitzgerald wrote in the letter that his veto “does not represent a disagreement with the need to pay our employees a living wage,” he said he does not agree that high school- and college-aged workers at swimming pools and golf courses should be raised to $18 or $20 per hour, and that doing so would cause a ripple effect of costs for the county.

Catena called the executive a “hypocrite,” citing Fitzgerald’s support, when he was a council member, for 2001 legislation that would have raised minimum pay for some county workers.

County Council passed the bill last week with a 10-4 vote. It would take 10 votes to override Fitzgerald’s veto, meaning only one member who voted in favor last week would need to switch sides to sink the bill. Council has 30 days to hold an override vote, which could take place during scheduled meetings June 20 or July 5.

Reported 6/12/23:

Pay raise would boost women, Black employees of Allegheny County — unless it’s vetoed

An Allegheny County Council bill could raise the pay of hundreds of county employees, eventually increasing the minimum pay for its workers to $20 per hour and lifting compensation for nursing assistants, clerks, child services caseworkers and others. But County Executive Rich Fitzgerald could veto the pay hike due to its cost. 

More than a fifth of Allegheny County’s 5,600 full-time employees made less than $20 per hour (or the equivalent $41,600 salary) in 2022, according to county payroll data, which PublicSource reviews and details annually. That group, 1,175 individuals in 2022, includes a higher proportion of women and people of color than the county’s workforce overall. And those workers who earned less than $20 per hour left their jobs at a higher rate than other county workers last year while key agencies struggled to retain and hire staff.

• View the full data here.

The bill would gradually raise minimum pay, only for county employees, to $20 per hour by 2026. The statewide minimum wage is $7.25. Whether the county threshold will become law is not yet clear. Council could overcome a Fitzgerald veto with a supermajority vote and, barring that, a new executive is coming in January who could champion the measure. 

Fitzgerald’s spokesperson declined to comment on the executive’s plans for the legislation last week.  

“If [Fitzgerald] wants to go down swinging against county employees, that is a path that he can choose to take,” said the bill’s sponsor, Councilwoman Bethany Hallam, a frequent foil of Fitzgerald. “We’re prepared to override a veto. … These are people who are struggling as it is. We need to give them an opportunity to focus on these important jobs without needing a second job or a gig job.”

Turnover: high in low-wage service jobs

Turnover is a constant in county government, but last year more people left county jobs (844) than were hired (698). Those who left had a median salary of about $47,500, which was about $5,200 less than the county’s overall median salary last year. 

Roughly 20% of county workers who earned less than the proposed $41,600 floor left their jobs last year, compared to just 13% of county workers who earned more. 

A total of 142 people left jobs at the county-run Kane assisted living homes last year, compared to just 31 hires during that time. The Allegheny County Department of Human Services [ACDHS] saw 155 departures and 57 new hires. 

Last year began with 276 caseworkers in ACDHS’ Division of Children, Youth and Families [CYF]. Sixty-four of them left and 12 were added. And that division had as many as 100 vacancies in September, according to a WESA report. Twenty of those who left in 2022 earned less than $41,600 per year. 

County spokesperson Amie Downs said increased turnover at the Kane Centers is in line with industry-wide difficulties since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that turnover among CYF caseworkers was up in 2021 and 2022 but has been a net positive so far in 2023. 

Brian Englert, who leads the union representing county jail correctional officers, said at Tuesday’s council meeting that raising wages could help fill dozens of medical staff vacancies at the jail. “I sit at a jail that struggles every day to have medical assistance to clear people at the door to be brought into the jail,” Englert said, referencing a posted $17.15 hourly rate for medical assistants. “We’re not getting anybody at that rate because they can get more at the hospital.”

Disparities: least male, least white departments paid less

Raising minimum pay for county workers would disproportionately impact women and Black employees, many of whom work as nursing assistants in the county’s nursing homes, assistants in ACDHS and the Public Defender’s office, and administrative workers who keep the gears of government turning in areas ranging from elections to property assessments. 

Staffing at the Kane Centers and within ACDHS stood out from other departments in three ways: Women were large majorities, Black employees made up more than one-quarter of their rosters, and they were most reliant on workers earning less than $20 an hour.

“I would just like to remind council that if … we want people to have a fair shot at being able to live in this county and not put that burden on the backs of Black women, then we should be voting in favor of this,” said Councilwoman Liv Bennett, the only Black woman on council, during Tuesday’s discussion of the wage increase. 

The cost: millions per year, rising gradually

Fitzgerald’s opposition to the pay increase legislation, he said, is rooted in his aversion to raising taxes. He claimed in a written statement that the legislation would cost taxpayers $30 million, though it’s not clear over how many years or how that figure was calculated. 

He said in a May 10 press release that Hallam’s bill would “require the largest tax increase in the history of this government.”

Asked how they arrived at the $30 million estimate, Downs said that it “is a moderate estimate put together by our Budget Department based on the language of the legislation.”

Council President Pat Catena, in an apparent response to Fitzgerald during Tuesday’s meeting, said, “If we can’t figure out a way to balance a budget of that [$1 billion] size with our existing revenues without asking our county employees to subsidize it by making less money than they could be making elsewhere, then our budgeting skills leave a lot to be desired.”

An analysis provided by County Council states that enacting the bill would cost annually about $2.8 million for salaried and hourly workers in 2026, when the wage floor would reach $20 an hour, plus anywhere from $1.1 million to $4.5 million for seasonal workers depending on how many hours they work in a given year. 

The council budget staff analysis asserts that there are 74 salaried employees whose pay would be boosted by the third year of the legislation, along with 690 hourly workers and 335 seasonal, temporary or part-time workers.

Also at issue are dueling legal opinions about whether the County Council even has the authority to set a minimum wage for county employees. The county solicitor, who serves the executive branch, wrote in an opinion that the county’s Home Rule Charter gives the executive discretion over employment matters. County Council’s solicitor wrote in a separate opinion that since the charter instructs the council to provide a plan for a personnel system, it grants it the power to set wages. 

Multiple lawmakers said Tuesday that Fitzgerald appeared to endorse council’s authority to set county employee wages when he was a councilor in the 2000s. He co-sponsored a bill in 2001 that would have set a minimum wage for employees of at least $9.12 per hour, adjusted for inflation each year. The bill never passed.

“Clearly the shoe is now on the other foot,” Catena said of Fitzgerald. 

Police earn most, court records workers least

The county workforce is slightly more white and male than the county population; 80% of workers were white to 79% of residents, 51% of workers are male to 49% of residents. 

The median salary — excluding seasonal workers, part-time workers and interns — is $52,701. White employees earned more than that (median salary $54,049) and Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, Hispanic and multiracial employees earned a median salary between $3,000 and $6,000 less than the overall median. Men earned a median salary $6,000 higher than that of women.

The County Police was the department with the highest median salary ($100,516) and the Department of Court Records the lowest ($40,071).

The county paid $34.9 million in overtime costs in 2022, up from $29 million in each of 2021 and 2020; 19% went to Kane Centers employees and 18% went to the Department of Emergency Management, largely to 911 dispatchers. PublicSource has reported staffing shortages in the 911 center in recent years.

The highest salaried county employee last year was Health Department Director Debra Bogen ($269,250), who resigned at the end of the year to become the state’s secretary of health. The next highest were County Manager William McKain ($235,750) who resigned in early 2023, and Medical Examiner Karl Williams ($235,500). County Executive Rich Fitzgerald ($142,339) had the 22nd-highest salary. 

Of 358 county employees who earned $100,000 or more, 92% were white and 75% were men. Almost half worked for county police and 42 in the district attorney’s office. This group is notably larger than in 2021, when 198 employees earned six-figure salaries. 

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Lucas Dufalla.

The post Updated: Fitzgerald vetoes Allegheny County wage floor bill, setting up override vote appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Overtime pay doubled and more teachers earned more money in Pittsburgh Public Schools [PPS] in 2022. 

According to an analysis of payroll data provided by the district, PPS paid about $277 million in salaries and overtime in that year.

Though the median income for the 4,265 salaried and non-salaried employees was around $66,200, 1,121 employees made over $100,000.

Besides the superintendent, employees in the district’s operations department brought home the biggest paychecks — in large part due to overtime, which, in some cases, increased base pay by double or more. 

The district spent at least $17 million in overtime and supplemental pay, nearly twice the amount from the previous year.

Teachers were also a significant contingent of those employees with total earnings over $100,000. Of the 742 teachers hitting that benchmark, 153 earned over $110,000 and the highest-paid teachers earned more than $130,000. In the year prior, about 70 teachers had total earnings earned over $110,000. 

Staffing shortages in custodial, food service, building and trades and secretarial-clerical positions may have resulted in increased overtime for the district’s existing staff. In an email response to questions, a district spokesperson said they are targeting recruitment efforts toward those groups including a sign-on bonus for custodial and food service staff.

How much did each employee earn?

The district paid Superintendent Wayne Walters the highest salary at $243,449 — 6% higher than former Superintendent Anthony Hamlet’s salary when he departed. 

Several employees from the central office and the operations department followed the superintendent into earning top salaries in the district. 

Patrick Quirin, a steamfitter foreman with the operations department, was the second-highest paid employee, earning a total of $187,348 — of which $112,641 was overtime and supplemental pay. 

Search the table below to learn how much district administrators, teachers and other staff earned last academic year.

What were PPS teachers paid?

The district employed 1,952 K-12 and preschool teachers last year. Of those, 589 earned between $100,000 and $110,000, reflecting an increase in salaries from the previous academic year. 

The district spokesperson said they have reduced their teaching and school-based support staff in the past two school years following a drop in student enrollment. During the 2021-22 school year, 33 teaching positions were cut.

In 2021: The majority of teachers earned between $90,000 and $100,000; the highest teacher salary was less than $110,000; and about 6% of teachers were paid between $100,000 and $110,000. 

In 2022: At least 30% of teachers were paid between $100,000 and $110,000. 

Three PPS teachers were paid over $130,000 — the highest earnings for teachers in the district. The district paid 28 teachers over $120,000. Supplemental pay was responsible for many of them earning over $120,000 in the district. 

It takes 12 years of teaching to start earning the maximum base salary of $99,000 with PPS. The starting salary for new teachers is about $48,340. Teacher base salaries were raised by 1.8% in the last year, according to the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers [PFT].

According to the district, new contract rates, additional education and service-based longevity increments and more teachers reaching the 12-year mark of their salary schedule resulted in an increase in salaries for teachers.

The 35 full-time substitute teachers in PPS earned an average income of about $31,000. CAPA 6-12 is the only school that has salaried and hourly adjunct teachers, who earned an average of about $36,040. 

Which schools have the most and the least experienced teachers?

Most schools have teachers with average tenures of at least 14 to 16 years of experience in the district. 

Brookline K-8 has the most experienced teaching staff, with its 28 teachers averaging 21 years working in the district. Teachers at University Prep 6-12 at Milliones [UPrep] have an average work experience of seven years, the least in the district. 

The average teacher pay at Brookline K-8 was nearly $99,580 while it was about $76,578 at UPrep.

Where do teachers live?

PPS teachers are not required to live within city limits to work for the district, unlike paraprofessionals and other staff like custodians and food service workers. 

• 14% of teachers live in ZIP codes that are entirely within the city of Pittsburgh. 
• About 56% of teachers live outside the city. 
• About 29% of teachers live in ZIP codes that cross the city boundaries, so city residency is unclear.

How diverse are PPS teachers and other staff members?

The district serves 18,652 students of whom 51% are Black. By contrast, 86% of PPS teachers were white — the same percentage as the previous academic year. 

Seven PPS schools mirrored the student body’s diversity with at least 50% of staff who are Black. 

Four schools, however, employed less than 10% of staff who are Black. 

In no school in the district are 50% or more of the teachers Black. Miller K-5, though, came close with 43% of teachers who are Black. Three schools — Manchester 6-8, Phillips K-5 and Woolslair K-5 — have no Black teachers. 

James Fogarty, executive director of advocacy group A+ Schools, said the district should invest in scholarships and workforce development, and rethink its teacher certification programs to make it easier for students of color to enter and complete them as a way to diversify the teacher pipeline. 

PFT President Nina Esposito-Visgitis said the district needs to leverage Brashear High School’s Teaching Academy Magnet program to track students and entice them to work in the district to improve teacher diversity.

Brashear High School has a majority of Black students and many of them enroll in the Teaching Academy. As per a memorandum of understanding between PFT and PPS, graduates from the Teaching Academy are guaranteed a teaching job in the district if they follow an education track in college and maintain a certain grade level. 

Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Matt Maielli.

The Fund for Investigative Journalism helped to fund this project.

Editor's note: Last year, PublicSource reported on racial and gender wage gaps within the district. We requested the data again this year and received a dataset that showed significant differences. When PublicSource asked the district questions about that data, however, the spokesperson said the district needs to analyze multiple data points that contributed to the differences and did not have a response to those questions. PublicSource will continue to seek confirmation and details from the district.

The post At Pittsburgh schools, teacher pay surged, but some building operations staff made even more appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pittsburgh Public Schools spent at least $288 million on salaries and other kinds of pay, like overtime, during the 2020-2021 school year.

The 4,485 salaried and non-salaried employees earned a median of roughly $61,000. Of those employees, 724 made more than $100,000. 

Aggregate data provided by the district revealed gender and racial wage gaps among the workforce. White employees made around $19,000 more than Black employees on average, and men earned about $2,000 more than women on average. The biggest discrepancy was between white men, who earned an average of about $71,000 per year, and Black men, who earned an average of $49,000 per year. White women earned an average of about $68,500 and Black women an average of $50,500.

The largest contingent of the workforce — teachers — is predominantly white, with salaries set according to a pay schedule negotiated between the district and the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers.

Who got paid how much?

The former superintendent was joined on the list of the district’s highest paid by other central office staff and several employees in the maintenance department.

Former Superintendent Anthony Hamlet earned $229,473. Kyle Vogt, an administrator for the maintenance department, was the second highest paid employee at $158,396.

Overtime pay contributed significantly to the maintenance department employees who show up in the top 25. The district paid out $9.4 million in overtime and supplemental pay in 2020-2021. 

There were about 250 substitute teachers last school year who earned $15,000 on average. A lack of substitute teachers has become a nationwide problem during the pandemic.

Search how much teachers, administrators and staff at your school earned in 2020-2021. Type in the name of the school in the search field below.

*An earlier version of the chart below showed some people’s earnings to be higher than they were. A PPS spokesperson said the reason for this discrepancy was some data was entered by hand and then added twice.

Most teachers earned between $90,000 and $100,000

The district employed 1,814 K-12 teachers in 2021:

• 86% of the teachers were white
• 71% were identified as female
• 57% earned between $90,000 and $110,000 per year.

The students in the district are 69% students of color and predominantly low income.

Most teachers (64%) had been with the district since at least 2010. According to the union-negotiated pay schedule, it takes about 11 years to start earning the maximum base salary ($99,000). 

Other incomes are more spread out. For example, PPS employed just under 500 classroom aides, 53% of whom are Black, the vast majority of of whom earned between $26,000 and $53,000.

Where do PPS teachers live?

PPS teachers are allowed to live outside of the city, unlike PPS paraprofessionals who have been advocating for a change to their contract on that point.

Map of where teachers live: 

At least 58% of teachers live outside of the city of Pittsburgh. At least 15% live in the city. And for 27% of teachers it’s unclear from their ZIP code.

Staff diversity varies widely across the district. 

For example, five schools in the district have a majority-Black staff that closely mirrors the district’s diversity, including Westinghouse Academy, Lincoln K-5, Faison K-5, Weil K-5 and Miller K-5. By contrast, four schools have less than 10% Black staff, including Phillips K-5, South Brook 6-8, Banksville K-5 and Carmalt K-8.

Which schools have the least well paid teachers (i.e the least experience)?

Teachers at some schools earn significantly less because they are newer teachers. Teachers at Schiller, for example, made an average salary of $65,000 per year, the lowest in the district. Arlington K-8, Montessori K-5, Spring Hill K-5, Sterret 6-8, Westinghouse 6-12, Allegheny 6-8, King 6-8,  and University Prep at Milliones had the lowest salaries in the district aside from Schiller. 

Teachers at Roosevelt K-5, the most experienced staff at a school that serves the general population, has an average of 21 years of experience, about three times as much as the least experienced staff at University Prep at Milliones. 

Only 3% of teachers left the district after the 2020-2021 school year. The district administration, by contrast, saw an exodus in 2021.

Correction (4/26/2022): The original data provided by PPS was incomplete and contained errors. This article has been updated to reflect corrections in the data provided by PPS.

Oliver Morrison is PublicSource’s K-12 education reporter. He can be reached at oliver@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ORMorrison.

This story was fact-checked by Charlie Wolfson.

The post Pittsburgh Public Schools’ employee salaries show disparities between Black and white staff appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pennsylvania paid about $6.2 billion to more than 111,000 employees in 2021, a very slight decrease from 2020. 

This includes every person who worked for the commonwealth for at least one day during 2021 and is far higher than the number of people who were employed on any particular day. A state report shows last year continued a decades-long contraction in the state workforce, falling from a peak of 118,000 executive branch employees in July 1975 to 85,000 in July 2000 and just under 78,000 in July of last year.

The median compensation for state employees in PublicSource’s analysis, including overtime and bonuses, was $52,278 in 2021, a 1% increase from 2020. This analysis does not include judicial branch employees.

Eighty percent of the executive branch employees were unionized, and 16% were minorities in 2021, according to the state’s annual report. 

By department

The single largest chunk of the state’s payroll in 2021 went to the Department of Corrections, which was the state’s only $1 billion agency. It encompassed 17% of all compensation, paid out to more than 16,000 employees.

Corrections had a payroll larger than that of the departments of Aging, Agriculture, Community & Economic Development, Education, Environmental Protection, Health, Labor & Industry, Military & Veterans’ Affairs, State, Treasury and the Turnpike Commission combined.

The next largest were the Department of Human Services ($832 million, 13% of the state total) and the System of Higher Education ($807 million, 13% of the state total). 

Pennsylvania’s public employees are heavily unionized, with more than 80% membership as of July 2021. More than 28,000 belonged to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and more than 29,000 others were spread among 20 other unions. 

Biggest earners

The list of the Pennsylvania government’s top earners is largely unchanged from last year. James Grossman held the top spot ($490,352) as a senior investment advisor at the state’s school employee retirement fund. Second was Michael Brogna, who earned $486,058 as a physician in a state hospital in Montour County. Third was Daniel Greenstein, who earned $432,011 as the chancellor of the System of Higher Education.

The state employed 11 people who earned more than $400,000 in 2021, up from seven in 2020.

Of the top 25 earners, 12 are physicians or psychiatrists, four are investment officers and six are higher education officials.

Gov. Tom Wolf earned $196,117, a lower amount than 321 state employees took. Wolf has donated his salary to charity since he took office in 2015. 

In the Capitol

The state’s legislative branch paid $162 million to 3,133 employees in 2021, including $23.3 million paid to elected lawmakers themselves.

Like in 2020, the top-paid legislators were House Speaker Bryan Cutler ($144,447) and Senate President Pro Tem Jake Corman ($140,265), both Republicans. Allegheny County Sen. Jay Costa, the Democratic leader in the upper chamber, was the highest-earning Democrat ($130,185). 

Two Allegheny County-based representatives who resigned in 2021 to lead Pittsburgh’s new city administration received big raises after leaving state government.

Former Rep. Ed Gainey, now the mayor of Pittsburgh, earned $89,853 as a state representative last year and now earns $124,658 as mayor — a 39% increase. Former Rep. Jake Wheatley, who serves as Gainey’s chief of staff, had a nearly identical change in compensation.

The state Capitol’s highest earners, though, were not elected. Claude Hafner, the chief counsel to the Senate Democrats, led the way with $220,848 earned in 2021, followed closely by the Senate Democrats’ chief of staff, Anthony Lepore. In total, 63 Capitol staffers earned more than Cutler, the top-paid lawmaker. 

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

This story was fact-checked by Oliver Morrisson.

The post Pennsylvania paid state employees $6.2B in ’21 appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Allegheny County continued a yearslong trend of spending roughly $29 million on overtime in 2021.

In total, the county paid a total of $321.3 million to 6,330 employees last year.

Like in 2020, the county’s biggest areas were:

• Department of Human Services (974 employees and 15% of the county’s gross payroll) 
• Allegheny County Jail (674 employees and 14% of the county’s gross payroll)
• Kane Centers nursing homes (978 employees and 13% of the county’s gross payroll).

More people left county jobs in 2021 than were hired, and some essential services such as health, emergency management and nursing homes absorbed big personnel losses.

View the full dataset here.

Overtime

Overtime costs made up 9% of all of the county’s payroll expenditures in 2021 but was a more significant cost at some agencies, including the Kane Centers (16% of pay expenditures) and the jail (20% of pay expenditures).

Overtime doesn’t only have an impact on the county’s bank account; some county employees complain of overwork and low morale brought about by frequent mandatory overtime. Throughout much of 2021, 911 dispatchers were regularly forced to work double eight-hour shifts, sometimes with no notice. At the jail, the correctional officers’ union leader has often taken to public forums to warn that mandatory overtime exhausts his staff and can lead to dangerous situations.

In an email to PublicSource, county spokesperson Amie Downs said this amount of overtime pay is not a concern for county leaders. “Overtime is part of any budget and something that we must plan for when making projections,” Downs said.

Overtime propelled some rank-and-file county workers to be among the county’s top earners. 

Brian Englert, a correctional officer at the jail and the officers’ union president, had a base salary of $74,145 but became the county’s eighth-highest earner by racking up more than $100,000 in overtime pay. A county police officer whose name was redacted from records earned more than $68,000 in overtime pay, bumping his gross pay to almost $180,000. 

At the Kane Centers, a licensed practical nurse almost tripled her base salary, earning nearly $85,000 in overtime pay. 

Top officials

In a sign of the COVID times, the top earner in the county government was Health Department Director Dr. Debra Bogen. Bogen, whose tenure as health director started just as COVID-19 reached Pittsburgh, received a 2% raise last year and grossed $255,000.

The next highest salaries belonged to County Manager William McKain and Medical Examiner Dr. Karl Williams, each around $223,000. 

District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. was the highest-paid elected official ($185,666), followed by County Executive Rich Fitzgerald ($138,664).

Fitzgerald’s salary bumped up 2% last year, a year after it jumped 50% thanks to an ordinance he had previously signed into law. Twenty county employees earned a higher base salary than Fitzgerald in 2021, and 57 did so when including overtime and other pay.

In total, the county’s five full-time elected officials earned about $655,000 last year. That group included Fitzgerald, Zappala, then-Controller Chelsa Wagner, then-Sheriff William Mullen and Treasurer John Weinstein.

Disparities

The racial and gender breakdown of the county’s workforce in 2021 largely matched that of the county’s population, with 80% of employees being white and 50% being male. 

There were pay disparities between demographic groups. Among full- and part-time employees, men had a median salary 20% higher than women, $52,156 to $43,246. White men earned a higher median salary than any other group ($52,840), and Black women had the lowest median salary of any group ($41,604).

(Note: Data provided by the county included only binary gender information, with all employees labeled either male or female.)

Downs said these topline salary numbers can be attributed to union contracts and other factors that do not include race. 

“Taking a snapshot that looks at the entire workforce together is not a reflection of pay or any existing disparities,” Downs said. “Approximately 80% of our workforce is unionized and the wages are set by the collective bargaining agreement and can reflect training, education, longevity, and any other number of factors. They do not, however, reflect race or gender.”

She said 24% of county hires since 2012 have been African American, 28% have been people of color and 60% have been female. 

Entries and exits

The county hired 749 people in 2021, including many seasonal parks employees, jail workers and human services caseworkers. Meanwhile, 1,279 people left their county jobs during the year, including 158 employees from human services, 212 from the Kane Centers, 113 from the jail, 80 from the Health Department and 58 from emergency management.

Human services underwent a stressful return-to-office process during the Delta wave of COVID-19 in mid-2021, accompanied by a higher-than-normal number of staff departures. The jail, the Health Department’s food safety team and the 911 center have each been the subject of dire understaffing reports. 

Of the workers hired to non-temporary positions at the county in 2021, 120 left their job before the year ended. These included 34 jail employees and 12 Health Department employees. 

Downs said the administration considers the number of departures this year and last to be “outliers” brought on by the pandemic. During the pandemic, she said, a “great deal of competition” for healthcare workers is reflected in the departments with high turnover.

“Individuals who were eligible to retire chose that option rather than continuing to work during COVID,” she added. 

Employee of the half-century

One county employee has the distinction of being hired in the 1960s — a clerk typist in the Health Department who has worked the same position since 1968 and earned $41,072 last year. Sixty people employed by the county in 2021 were hired in the 1970s (18 of them left their job during 2021), 300 were hired in the 1980s, 633 in the 1990s, 1,290 in the 2000s, 2,857 in the 2010s and 1,190 in the 2020s. 

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

This story was fact-checked by Abby Nemec-Marwene.

The post Allegheny County government shed employees and paid $29M in overtime in 2021 appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pittsburgh paid more than $275 million to 3,847 full- and part-time employees in 2021, public records show, including more than $16 million in overtime pay and more than $100 million to the police.

The city came out of a pandemic-induced hiring freeze and brought on 166 new full-time employees in 2021. But as the labor market churned across the nation and then-Mayor Bill Peduto lost his reelection bid, 353 people left city jobs, including significant numbers in the public safety and public works departments.

Racial and gender pay gaps persisted among city employees, with white employees and male employees earning higher median salaries than women or people of color. 

View the full database here.

Coming and going

The national labor market was in turmoil in 2021, and the city’s employment records show plenty of hires and departures throughout the year. While the end to an early-pandemic hiring freeze unlocked a large number of jobs to be filled in summer 2021, the city did not keep up with its losses.

Across city government, 353 full-time employees departed the city government in 2021, more than double the 166 who were hired during the year. The exodus included 85 employees from the Bureau of Police, 78 from the Department of Public Works, 38 from the Bureau of Fire and 21 from the Bureau of Emergency Medical Services. 

The police bureau added just eight employees in 2021. Fifty-one of the city’s 166 hires were in public works, 27 in the fire department and 23 in EMS. 

City press secretary Maria Montaño said in a March 31 interview that there are currently 239 vacancies across city departments. 

Disparities

More than 84% of public safety employees were white in 2021, and 74% were white men. 

In the rest of the city government, 63% of full-time employees were white, almost precisely matching the city’s overall population. 

The median base salary for city-employed men in 2021 was just over $70,000, 23% higher than the median for women — $57,000. Like the gender composition of the city’s workforce, the wage gap is heavily weighted by the sheer number of men employed by the public safety bureaus. 

Among full-time city employees outside of public safety, the median base salary for women was actually almost $3,000 higher than that of men.

The median base salary for the city’s white full-time employees was around $70,000, while the median base salary for all other racial identities was just over $54,000. Excluding the public safety bureau employees, white employees made a median base salary of more than $53,000, while employees of other racial identities had a median base salary of just over $47,000.

Montaño acknowledged the disparities and said these figures highlight “legacy issues” the city faces.

“A lot of progress has been made outside of [public safety] in terms of looking at women,” she said. “We’ll still have a lot of work to do regarding the race wage gap. We’re digging into this data for the first time ourselves and we’re looking at it to see what we need to be doing as an administration going forward.”

Increasing diversity in the public safety bureaus has been a stated goal of multiple city administrations. Montaño said Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration would approach hiring across the city government with an eye on equity and diversity.

“What are the unnecessary barriers to employment and who are the folks most affected by those?” Montaño said. “How are we promoting? … Those are all the things we’re thinking of as we go through this process.”

She said partnerships, such as one between public safety and Westinghouse High School, can deliver opportunities to diverse city populations. 

(Note: Data provided by the city included only binary gender information, with all employees labeled either male or female. PublicSource grouped nonwhite employees together because most of the individual racial groups were statistically small; more than 75% of nonwhite employees in 2021 were Black and no other group made up more than 5%.)

Overtime

The city paid out $16.4 million in overtime pay in 2021, continuing a multi-year decline, and down from $19.7 million in 2020.

The Bureau of Police was the largest overtime payer in the city, by a wide margin, at nearly $7.9 million. Other city divisions that paid more than $1 million in overtime were EMS ($4.3 million), the Bureau of Fire ($2.1 million) and the Department of Public Works ($1.7 million). 

The top overtime earner in the city, a paramedic hired in 1994, upped his gross pay by more than $133,000. At least seven city employees earned more overtime pay than base pay. 

More than $13 million in city compensation was not categorized as base pay, overtime or bonuses. Asked about the sums, unaccounted for in the data provided by the city, Montaño said such money can be for shift differential, retroactive pay for contract amendments, settlements, driver pay or medical waivers. She did not provide details on how much of the money was attributed to any particular category.

Four high-ranking Bureau of Fire employees each cleared more than $140,000 in compensation not detailed in the data provided to PublicSource, more than doubling their overall pay. More than 200 city employees earned $50,000 or more from these areas, all in the public safety bureaus. 

Top earners

The public safety bureaus command the lion’s share of the city’s payroll, and their top brass are the city’s top earners — at least by base pay. Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich, who left his post this January, had the highest base salary at $135,265. Police Chief Scott Schubert, EMS Chief Ronald Romano and Fire Chief Darryl Jones, who each remain in those posts, were next in line. 

Sixty-six employees had a base salary more than $100,000, including a group of public safety workers, the mayor’s senior staff and some department directors. 

Tenure

One city employee in 2021 had the distinction of being hired by the city in the 1960s — a fiscal auditor in the Office of Municipal Investigations who was hired in 1964 under Mayor Joseph M. Barr. In 2021, she earned a base salary of $45,518.

Forty-three 2021 employees were hired in the 1970s, 187 in the 1980s, 478 in the 1990s, 822 in the 2000s, 2,316 from 2010 through 2021. 

Correction: This story previously misstated the name of the Office of Municipal Investigations.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

This story was fact-checked by Abby Nemec-Marwede.

The post Pay gaps remained as Pittsburgh lost workers in 2021 appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pittsburgh city employees collectively earned more in 2020 than they did in 2019, despite a pandemic and financial crunch that caused a hiring freeze early in the year and threatened to force layoffs until federal relief came in 2021.

PublicSource has examined the city’s payroll every year since 2014, and the 2020 edition is unique in its surrounding circumstances and challenges. The city continued to struggle with diversity in its workforce, a problem that worsened slightly in 2020. Overtime remained a significant cost, though changes in operations due to the pandemic led to a notable decrease.

The city Open Records Office provided the salary dataset, which includes anyone who worked for the city for at least one day last year and does not represent the size of the workforce at any one time.

Explore the full dataset here.

Pay by department

The Bureau of Police paid $105.7 million to its employees in 2020, more than any other city department and almost double what was spent by Public Works, Parks and Recreation, Management and Budget, Mobility and Infrastructure, Law, Finance, City Planning, City Council and the City Controller combined. 

More than $12 million of the police pay was in overtime, with bureau employees earning an average of $9,723 in overtime. Sgt. Phillip Carey earned the most overtime with $84,890, and six other police officers earned more than $50,000 in overtime.

Police officers also earned just over $4 million in supplemental pay (like longevity pay and personal leave buybacks) in 2020, for an average of $3,223 per employee.

The Bureau of Police median total pay — $93,687 — was about $27,000 higher than the city’s median full-time total pay overall. The median base pay for police is just over $69,000, about $3,000 higher than the city’s full-time employees overall. (Base pay only includes the annual salary while total pay includes overtime and supplemental income and benefits.)

Overall, the city paid $29.6 million to employees above their base salary, including $19.7 million for overtime and $9.9 million for other supplemental pay. In 2019, the city spent $59.2 million to employees above their base salary.

Asked how the city decreased overtime and supplemental costs so dramatically, Mayor Bill Peduto’s Chief of Staff Dan Gilman said the pandemic caused unusual overtime patterns, with some departments increasing overtime and others decreasing significantly.

“We always look to control OT costs, but they are also a necessary and expected part of our budget,” Gilman said, due to emergencies and staff illnesses.

Emergency Medical Services paid employees $18.6 million in total and was home to some of the city’s highest paid employees.

The city’s top overall earner was EMS crew chief Jerome Wasek, who took home $296,891 in 2020 after he racked up $164,342 in overtime pay and $17,793 in supplemental pay. Another crew chief, Gregory Tersine, earned $150,857 in overtime to take home $267,679 in overall pay. One other employee, paramedic Anthony DeSantis, earned more than $100,000 in overtime pay.

The remainder of the top 25 overall earners were police or fire employees.

Top earners 

All of the top 25 earners were male (the top-earning woman was 27th overall). Twenty-two of the top earners were white and three were Black. 

The 19th-highest earner was police officer Paul Abel, who was fired in December after a string of controversial incidents. He took home $199,075 in 2020, about $25,907 of which was overtime pay.

Demographic disparities

Pittsburgh’s population is 51% female, compared to 24% of city workers. The city is 65% white, compared to a city workforce that is 76% white.

Black residents make up 23% of the city population but 18% of city employees, and 5.8% of city residents are Asian compared to 1.1% of city workers.

These disparities were deeper in 2020 than they were in 2019. In 2020, the city workforce became proportionally more male (74% to 77%) and more white (75% to 77%); white men accounted for 60% of all city workers. 

Pay disparities also deepened in 2020. Among full-time employees, the median base pay for men was about $13,000 higher than that of women. Including overtime and other add-ons, the gap is more than $28,000.

White employees earned a median base pay about $18,000 higher than Black employees and at least $4,000 higher than any other ethnic group. Including overtime and supplemental pay, white employees took home a median salary $24,000 higher than Black employees.

Gilman attributed the disproportionately high number of white and male employees — and the pay disparities — to the fact that the Public Safety department, which is more than 80% white and male, has the most employees and the highest salaries.

Gilman said Peduto has “worked hard to make improvements” to the diversity of the public safety department and suggested that the city could see results in the coming years. He also noted that the mayor’s office and his cabinet of directors is the city’s most diverse ever, in terms of race and gender.

Earning more than Peduto

Peduto earned $121,797 in 2020. Five employees earned a higher base pay than Peduto, but 453 employees earned more when factoring in overtime. Of those, 400 were white and 428 were male. Peduto’s Chief of Staff Dan Gilman earned $125,280.

The short list of employees with a higher base pay than the mayor is topped by Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich ($131,324) and Police Chief Scott Schubert ($126,035).

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

This story was fact-checked by Xiaohan Liu and Chris Hippensteel.

The post Pittsburgh cut overtime in 2020 but wage gaps persisted appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Allegheny County paid $29.2 million in overtime to its employees in 2020, including more than $16 million to employees of the county jail and county nursing homes.

The county paid more than $324 million in gross pay to 6,314 full- and part-time employees who worked for the county in 2020. This figure includes base pay, overtime and bonuses and was a 1.5% increase over 2019. This data includes all who worked for the county for at least one day last year and does  not represent the size of the county’s workforce at any one time.

The median gross pay for full- and part-time county employees was $48,290. 

Some of the top base-pay earners in the county are public figures and politicians, but other employees, including nurses and jail workers, climbed the list of top earners by racking up large amounts of overtime. 

The county redacted the names of 57 employees who are undercover law enforcement or would face a risk of physical harm by being named.

Explore the full dataset here.

Overtime

Overtime pay represents 9% of all the taxpayer money that went to salaries. County overtime pay has steadily increased since it stood at around $20 million in 2014. It peaked at $30.1 million in 2018 and landed at around $29 million in both 2019 and 2020. 

According to the county budget department, overtime is “expected and planned for” and that the fact that the 2020 amount was similar to recent years despite the pandemic “reflects the work that has been done to ensure that employee overtime is monitored.”

The county jail and its 706 employees accounted for the biggest chunk of the county’s overtime pay ($8.6 million) and its second biggest gross payroll ($44.6 million). Twenty-four correctional officers earned more than Warden Orlando Harper in 2020. Correctional Officer Brian W. Englert was the top earner at $164,162, including $84,833 in overtime. Harper made $120,311.

Englert was not the county’s overall biggest overtime earner, though. That distinction belongs to Minkyong Shin, a registered nurse at the Kane Regional Centers nursing homes. Shin had a base salary of about $60,000 but earned more than $143,000 in overtime, bringing the total to more than $205,000.

Policies are in place to ensure the safety of employees and people under their care, according to the county budget department, but county officials wouldn’t otherwise comment on personnel matters.

The Kane Centers paid $47.5 million to 1,055 employees. More than $8.2 million — or 17% — was from overtime. Shin was its highest-paid employee by more than $60,000, though 16 other employees grossed more than $100,000 including base pay and overtime. Shin was one of 12 who received more than $50,000 in overtime.

The Department of Emergency Management paid 17% more in overtime than it did in 2019. The sheriff’s office cut its overtime by about a third from 2019 and the Department of Human Services by 17%.

Demographic disparities

The racial makeup of the county’s workforce in 2020 was similar to the county population. About 80% of county employees and county residents were white in 2020. Black individuals accounted for about 13% of the county population but almost 18% of the county workforce. 

While 4% of the county population is Asian or Pacific Islander,  that group comprises 0.9% of county employees. And, 2% of county residents are Hispanic or Latino, compared to 0.6% of employees.

50.1% of county employees were female. The database contained no other designations beyond female and male, such as nonbinary. 

Male employees received a median gross pay of more than $10,000 higher than women — $53,779 compared to $43,603. 

The only two racial groups with more than 100 workers also showed a pay disparity. Black workers earned a median gross pay of $43,469, while white workers earned a median gross pay of $49,795.

Top earners

The top earner, including overtime and bonuses, in 2020 was Dr. Karl Williams, the chief medical examiner ($219,864). Second was County Manager William McKain ($210,958) followed by County Police Inspector Kenneth Ruckel ($206,451). 

Minkyong Shin, the Kane Centers nurse who earned more than $143,000 in overtime pay, was the county’s fourth-highest gross earner at $205,295. 

District Attorney Stephen Zappala is the only elected official among the top 25 gross earners, ranking eighth at $185,571.

Of the top 25 earners, seven worked for the county police, five for the medical examiner’s office, four for the jail, and nine others spread across seven different departments.

Out-earning Fitzgerald

Including overtime and bonuses, 46 employees earned more than County Executive Rich Fitzgerald. This is down from 604 employees who did so in 2019. Fitzgerald’s pay jumped from $90,000 in 2019 to $135,886 in 2020. 

The increase was triggered by an ordinance passed by County Council in 2016 that set the county executive’s salary at 68% of the Pennsylvania governor’s salary starting in 2020. The ordinance was passed by council and signed into law by Fitzgerald. Its effect was delayed because officials are prohibited from increasing their own pay in the middle of a term in office. Fitzgerald won reelection in 2019.

Of the 46 workers who earned more than Fitzgerald, 20 worked for the county police and seven worked for the jail.

Longest county career

The longest-tenured county employee started as a clerk typist in the Department of Health in 1968 and has worked in the same position since. She was the only county employee in 2020 who was hired before 1970. She made $40,269 in 2020.

Forty-eight county employees in 2020 were hired in the 1970s, though 15 of them retired or otherwise departed at some point in the year. More than 320 employees started in the 1980s, 676 in the 1990s, 1,282 in the 2000s, 3,191 in the 2010s and 767 in 2020.

The county budget department attributed the relatively high number of hires in 2020 to the need to offset a wave of departures — some seeking more lucrative work in the medical and scientific fields and some choosing to retire rather than be in public during the pandemic.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

This story was fact-checked by Xiaohan Liu.

The post Allegheny County paid $29.2 million in overtime in 2020, mostly to nursing home and jail employees appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pennsylvania paid almost $6.2 billion in salaries to 112,241 employees in 2020, a modest increase from 2019.

The state’s workforce included more than 88,000 people working for executive branch agencies, more than 3,000 working for the Legislature, and more than 21,000 who fall under different jurisdictions like the higher education system, the Turnpike Commission or the Department of the Auditor General.

This is the total number of people who worked for the state for at least one day in 2020 and far more than the number of people who worked for the state at any one point in time. For example, on June 30, 2020, Pennsylvania employed 77,528 full- and part-time workers, according to a state report.

The salary data obtained by PublicSource does not specify whether each employee was part-time, full-time or an intern, nor does it break each person’s compensation into base pay, overtime and per diem. Salaries for court employees are not included in the state database. The judiciary separately reports some salary information online.

Explore the full dataset here.

The median compensation was up almost 7% from 2019.

Which agencies spent the most?

The Department of Corrections [DOC] was the only entity with a billion-dollar payroll. As the state’s second largest agency, it employed 16,283 people and paid them more than $1.07 billion — a 1.3% increase over 2019. The department, which includes 37 correctional facilities, took about 17% of the state’s payroll.

The DOC had a payroll almost double that of the departments of Agriculture, Conservation & Natural Resources, Education, Environmental Protection, Health, Military and Veterans affairs and State combined. The Department of Human Services employed almost 1,000 more people than the DOC but paid out $226 million less to its workers.

Which individuals earned the most?

The upper tier of earners is mostly comprised of doctors, investment managers and university officials.

The state’s top earner was James Grossman, the chief investment officer of the Public School Employees’ Retirement System [PSERS], at $478,490. PSERS manages the pension plan for Pennsylvania school employees.

Daniel Greenstein, the chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education [PASSHE], had the second highest pay at $469,718. Under Greenstein’s leadership, PASSHE is currently hearing public comments on a controversial plan to consolidate six of its 14 schools in an attempt to cut costs and boost enrollment.

Other top earners in the state’s public education system were Indiana University of Pennsylvania President Michael Driscoll ($406,018), East Stroudsburg University President Marcia Welsh ($334,890) and West Chester University President Christopher Fiorentino ($324,243). Welsh announced her retirement in January 2021.

Four physicians at the Department of Human Services — Michael Brogna, Asmita Shah, Susan Lightbourn and Mohammed Aslam — joined Grossman, Greenstein and Driscoll as the only state employees to earn more than $400,000.

Who earned more than Gov. Wolf?

Gov. Tom Wolf earned $195,457 last year, earning less than 264 state employees on his sixth year on the job. State troopers, professors, dentists, corrections officers and registered nurses were among those who earned more than Wolf in 2020.

Wolf donated his salary to the State Employee Combined Appeal, an annual charitable giving campaign run by the state, as he has done throughout his time as governor, according to his spokesperson Lyndsey Kensinger.

Of the employees who earned more than the governor, 41% worked in PASSHE, 16% were in the Department of Human Services, 9% worked for PSERS, 9% worked for the State Police and the remaining 25% worked for different agencies.

What did lawmakers earn?

The Pennsylvania General Assembly paid more than $156 million to 3,040 employees in 2020. The legislative branch includes the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Legislative Reference Bureau and nine other offices with fewer than 40 employees each.

The top-earning lawmakers were House Speaker Bryan Cutler ($130,680), Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman ($130,412) and Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa ($129,576).

Pay can vary due to a number of factors such as leadership roles, but most lawmakers made $89,432. In all, the state paid its legislators just over $23 million.

Some Harrisburg staffers earned far more than the lawmakers they served.

Anthony Lepore, the chief of staff for Costa, made $205,696 — $76,120 more than the powerful Democrat he served. The chief counsel to Cutler’s office made $202,059, which is $71,379 more than the Republican speaker made himself. In all, 61 legislature employees earned more than Cutler, the highest earning lawmaker.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

This story was fact-checked by Xiaohan Liu.

The post What did Pennsylvania pay its employees in 2020? appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.