Public PayCHECK: Check out local government salaries

As a student pursuing an engineering degree, Brandon Braun didn't expect to go to work in the public sector.

"You kind of know that the money is less," said Braun, who graduated in May 2011 into a job market with few openings. A connection in Springfield pointed him toward a position as a project engineer with the city. His salary, now about $55,000 a year, was better than expected and he's enjoyed the work, which has him reviewing and designing plans for local transportation projects.

"We do a lot of work with private consultants. Seeing the experience they're getting and the experience I'm getting, I think I'm getting a lot out of my job here for the future growth of my career," Braun said. Despite all that, he expects to eventually leave city employment in order to advance.

"We have (salary) caps in the city on certain positions, so it's definitely going to be a concern if I end up capped out," he said. "If I'm performing well in my job ... I'd always want to be moving up."

Greener pastures may not be hard to find. A recent salary survey shows that City of Springfield wages often were less than the wages offered for comparable jobs in other cities.

But a News-Leader analysis of public employee salaries shows that city government workers have no more — and no less — cause for complaint than other area workers.

Overall, city wages appear to mirror those of others in the community. As of February, the average hourly wage of a City of Springfield employee was $17.75, according to payroll records obtained by the News-Leader. The average hourly wage for all workers in the Springfield metro area was $17.71, according to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or about $37,000 a year assuming a 40-hour work week.

Both rates lag behind average wages for the state of Missouri, at $20.20 an hour, and the nation, at $22.23.

Workers at other public institutions in Springfield fared both better and worse. The average rate of pay for staff at the Springfield-Greene County Library District and county government both trailed the area average. Employees of Springfield Public Schools, Ozarks Technical Community College and Missouri State University make noticeably more — but still less than the average wage paid to workers at area nonprofits such as Mercy, CoxHealth and Drury University.

The highest salaries overall are offered by City Utilities, where the average hourly wage was $33.34, almost double the average for the Springfield metro area.

The hourly rates, which were calculated using information provided by the agencies, offer a comparison of wages but don't take into account education levels, work hours or the relative demand for various positions.

The average hourly wage for Springfield Public Schools employees was $26.35, for example.

But many district employees only work nine months out of the year, limiting their annual salaries. School employees also tend to be more highly educated — at least two-thirds have bachelor's degrees, according to district records, compared to about one quarter of the general public.

Low-wage reputation

The comparatively lower salaries at the city and some other public agencies reflect the Springfield area's reputation — backed up by the numbers — as a low-wage city in a low-wage state.

The region's lower cost of living helps offset the smaller paychecks, but only to a point. Overall, it costs about 88.6 percent of the national average to live in the Springfield area, according to data gathered by the Council for Community and Economic Research.

Housing costs here are especially low, at just 75.1 percent of the national average. But an average Springfield worker makes only about 80 percent of the national hourly wage.

"It doesn't hurt us as bad when we're recruiting locally for jobs," said Springfield City Manager Greg Burris. "But when we try to recruit nationally, it hurts us ... we're competing with much higher salaries.

Reversing the low-wage trend has been a goal of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, through economic development efforts. Many of the state and local incentives the chamber uses to entice new businesses require the creation of jobs that pay higher wages than the county average.

"Quality job creation does several things, but first and foremost it creates disposable income, which is then spent in our area," said Ryan Mooney, the chamber's senior vice president for economic development.

"We have to be competitive with places across the country if we're trying to attract talent," he said. "High wages are part of that, but also a robust benefits package."

Burris agreed that the trend of low wages needs attention. But he sees the city serving as a bellwether for local salaries, not a leader offering higher wages.

"We need to be an advocate for higher salaries and how that impacts the broader issue of poverty," he said. "But I don't ever see the city being the tip of the spear for pay, just because we don't have the resources to play that role."

Public perception also plays a part, he said. "Our goal is to be an employer of choice ... (but) we as citizens always want the biggest bang at the lowest cost."

Competition drives wages

Officials at City Utilities say the higher average wages earned by utility staff reflect the competition in the market for talented workers.

"We do compete nationally for many of our jobs, many of which are highly technical," said Amy Austin, CU's associate general manager for administration.

A February salary study compared the wages and benefits offered to CU workers to their counterparts at 31 other public and private utilities, with the results adjusted to account for Springfield's generally lower cost-of-living. CU's goal, set by the Board of Public Utilities, is to offer salaries close to the median of the market — meaning half of the utilities it uses for comparison offer more money and half offer less.

"By doing that due diligence, we can show Springfield citizens we're not overpaying ... but still have the ability to attract the best and the brightest," Austin said.

"Hiring (and retaining) the best is part of how we can continue to have lower rates."

The February survey found base salaries at CU on average were about 4 percent higher than the median. After adjusting for benefits, CU's compensation was about 1 percent above the target.

Austin said the slightly higher pay is due in part to the long tenure of many CU employees.

"Our average employee has been here 14 years ... so they actually will be paid a little more than market," Austin said. Turnover at the utility is only about 4 percent a year, including retirements.

"There's loyalty there and a lot of experience," said Debbie Kreider, CU's director of human resources. "We're pretty proud of that because we gain a lot of knowledge there."

Falling behind

While CU's salary targets incorporate both public and private competition, the city's long-standing goal has been to offer salaries in the midrange compared to a group of benchmark cities.

In the most recent salary survey, completed this year, only 22 of the 56 city positions studied were in that range. The majority, 31, fell below target. Salaries for three positions, including the city manager, ranked higher than most benchmarks.

"There's not been enough revenue to go in and surgically address positions that sometimes are 20 percent or 30 percent below market," Burris said of the large number of below-market salaries. "It takes a lot of money — money that we haven't had."

The city allocated about $1.8 million in the current budget year to fund merit-based salary increases and an across-the-board, 1.5 percent raise for employees. About $1.6 million has been set aside in the proposed budget for the next fiscal year. Through the collective bargaining process, employee groups will help determine how the money is allocated.

Absent significant pay increases, the city has tried to appeal to workers through other means.

Burris pointed to the city's wellness program and an expanded orientation process as examples. Both help to introduce city staff to co-workers and encourage them to feel part of a single team.

"By trying to be unique and creative, the goal is to attract the creative class," Burris said. "And we want it to be fulfilling."

Sense of community, service

For some city employees, the lure of community service is stronger than the promise of a larger paycheck somewhere else.

"It's more than just your salary — you've got to like what you do," said Andrew Flippin, a professional engineer in the city's transportation engineering division. After interning at the city, he worked in the private sector for three years before applying for his city engineering job about a year-and-a-half ago.

Flippin, whose recent work includes an ongoing project to widen Republic Road, said he enjoys the time he spends meeting with residents.

"I feel I can have greater impact," he said. "There's a sense of pride in the community. I've lived in Springfield my whole life ... I knew that I wanted to work here."

A similar sense of community convinced Lisa Addington to return after leaving city employment for a higher-paying job in the private sector.

"I loved working for the city and it was a hard decision, but my thought at the time was it was perhaps a better opportunity for my career and more pay," said Addington, a human resources coordinator. After three years away, she took a pay cut to return to the city's employ.

"I missed that sense of belonging and accomplishment," she said. "That sense of public service is very important to many employees."

About the data

Payroll information used in this story was collected from the following local public government bodies: City of Springfield, Greene County, City Utilities, Springfield-Greene County Library District, Missouri State University and Ozarks Technical Community College. (Employees of the Springfield-Greene County Park Board, Health Department and 911 Emergency Communications Department are included in the database of city employees).

Each was asked to provide a list of all employees, with job titles and full- or part-time status, along with total compensation for the 2013 calendar year and hourly rate of pay as of Jan. 1.

Anyone who earned wages in 2013 or was an active employee in early 2014 should be included, but not all people listed in the databases remain active employees. Recent hires — including adjunct professors not on the payroll at the first of the year — may not be included.

Many full-time employees are paid an annual salary rather than an hourly wage. In those cases, either the public institution or the News-Leader calculated an hourly rate of pay assuming a 40-hour work week and 52 weeks of work. That information was then compared to average hourly wages for the nation, state and local metro area compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average hourly wage for local nonprofits was taken from the 2014 Nonprofit Impact Study by Drury University's Center for Nonprofit Communication.

Compensation for 2013 includes the total amount an employee received during the year before taxes. In addition to regular wages, it includes any car allowances, stipends or deferred compensation; overtime payments; and payouts of accumulated leave time at retirement.

Some of the institutions provided additional entries showing supplemental pay employees will receive in 2014 along with a base salary.

Bears hoops coach takes top spot

Beating out officials who lead local government and educational institutions, Missouri State men's basketball coach Paul Lusk had the highest base salary of the public employees included in the News-Leader's review.

Lusk, whose salary is reported to be at or below the average for coaches in the Missouri Valley Conference, was hired in April 2011 to replace Cuonzo Martin after seven years as an assistant at Purdue. He guided the Bears to a 20-13 record last season – a turnaround from an 11-22 mark in 2012-13 – and is 47-51 in three seasons.

He worked as an assistant coach at Division II Missouri Southern in Joplin for three seasons before spending a year as head coach at Dubuque College in Iowa and one year at Southern Illinois as an assistant before his stint at Purdue.

Many expect Lusk, 42, eventually to move on to a larger market. But an early exit could prove costly. A three-year contract extension granted in April includes a provision that would force Lusk to pay a penalty to the university equal to $350,000 minus $70,000 for each year of the contract he had completed.

City Utilities #1 comes in at #2

Second on the list of highest-paid public employees is City Utilities General Manager Scott Miller, who oversees an organization with an annual budget of more than half a billion dollars.

Miller, who spent 25 years at investor-owned Dayton Power and Light in Dayton, Ohio, worked nine years as CU's associate general manager of power supply before taking the helm when John Twitty retired in 2011.

Twitty earned a base salary of $377,322, with additional benefits totaling 47.8 percent of his pay, when he retired. Miller's base salary, which started at $295,000 in 2011, has increased in the past three years to about $335,000.

Lawyer leads Missouri State

An attorney by trade, Clif Smart served as Missouri State University's top legal adviser before taking over as president in 2012.

Smart's initial contract included a base salary of $275,000, which was the same as his predecessor, James Cofer. But Smart has returned or rejected some fringe benefits earlier presidents received.

A $40,000 annual housing allowance is included as part of his contract, but Smart chose to donate that money back to the university to sponsor a professor's position and support Tent Theater.

And while the contract guarantees him a year's salary if he is fired without cause, it eliminated a provision in earlier contracts that allowed presidents to step down but retain some portion of the higher salary while teaching or doing other work at the university.

Former administrators get outsized pay as professors

Two former university administrators occupy top spots on Missouri State's payroll. Technically professors, James Cofer and Belinda McCarthy make significantly more than their cohorts thanks to lucrative parachute provisions included in their earlier contracts.

As provost, McCarthy served as MSU's Number 2 administrator from 2006 to 2011, when she came under fire for questionable travel expenses on university-paid trips and accusations of favoritism by faculty.

McCarthy resigned, taking advantage of a provision in her contract that allowed her to return to the faculty at nine-elevenths of her salary as provost. She teaches in the Counseling, Leadership and Special Education department.

Cofer, who served as MSU president less than a year, stepped down about a week after McCarthy. Critics described the move as the Board of Governors "cleaning house" but Cofer and the board called the resignation – which came as the board was reviewing Cofer's contract - a voluntary move, with Cofer saying he wanted to spend more time working with students. A provision in his contract allowed him to return to teaching at 60 percent of his pay as president. He now teaches business courses.

OTC director works grant from Jefferson City

Although most of the top public employees live, as well as work, in the Springfield area, a few have offices farther afield.

Previously the executive director of the Center for Workforce Development at Ozarks Technical Community College, Dawn Busick now works on behalf of OTC and other state community colleges in Jefferson City.Technically still an OTC employee, Busick helps administer a $20 million federal grant that the MoWINS consortium of community colleges obtained in 2011, according to spokesman Mark Miller. OTC acts as the fiscal agent for the grant and is responsible for the financial administration and auditing. Busick's salary is paid from grant funds.

The gender gap

Of the 100 highest-paid local public employees, exactly 25 are women. Those 25 women earned an average hourly wage of $68.56, or $142,604.80.

The 75 men on the top 100 list earned an average hourly wage of $73.46, or $152,796.80 a year.

The average hourly wage for the entire top 100 was $72.24, or $150,259.20 a year.

A $15 million list

The 100 highest-paid public employees earn a combined total of $15,025,327.45 a year in base salaries. In comparison, that's about how much the City of Springfield paid in salaries and benefits for 200 firefighters in the past year, and equivalent to the combined revenue generated each year by the city's 1/4-cent Capital Improvements and 1/8-cent Transportation sales taxes.

The $100,000 (and $200,000) Club

There were a total of 281 full-time employees making $100,000 or more among the seven public entities included in the News-Leader's analysis. Nine of those had base salaries of at least $200,000 a year; three were making $300,000 or more.

Which agencies are included?

The News-Leader obtained 2014 payroll information from seven local public agencies: the City of Springfield (including the city-county parks and health departments), Greene County, City Utilities, Springfield Public Schools, Missouri State University, Ozark Technical Community College and the Springfield-Greene County Library District. Federal and state employees – including state-paid local judges – were not included in the review.

What about John Jungmann?

Incoming Springfield Public Schools Superintendent John Jungmann doesn't start work until July. His base salary - $230,000, compared to the $160,926 base salary paid to current Superintendent Norm Ridder – would put him in fifth place on the Top 100 list.

Who didn't make the list?

Only the 100 highest-paid public employees are included on the list printed here, which includes those making a little more than $122,000. High-level administrators at several agencies fell farther down the list.

A cluster of city department heads sits just outside the top 100, with most making about $121,000 a year.

About two dozen Missouri State professors and department heads occupy the list with salaries between $113,000 and $119,000.

Fifteen school principals and other district administrators occupy a band of salaries between $109,000 and $111,000, with another dozen in the $102,000 to $105,000 range.

Utility and university employees dominate top salaries

City Utilities, which paid the highest average employee wage of the agencies in the News-Leader's analysis, also dominates the list of highest-paid public employees. Of the top 100 earners, 43 work at the utility.

Another 43 of the top salaries belong to Missouri State University employees. Most are administrators, although some professors and medical staff made the list. The average wage for university employees as a whole was closer to the average for the Springfield area, but still better than what most local workers make.

The list has eight employees of Ozarks Technical Community College, including the chancellor and five vice chancellors. The top three administrators at Springfield Public Schools made the list, as well, along with Springfield's city manager and assistant city manager. The executive director of the Springfield-Greene Library District also held a spot.

Not a single Greene County government employee – of the 777 on the payroll at the beginning of the year - made it into the top 100. Only one, Prosecutor Dan Patterson. makes more than $100,000. Most elected county officials make about $74,000, an amount exceeded by the sheriff ($80,000) and 10 county staff members making between about $75,000 and $92,000.

Highly-paid civil servants whose names you've never heard

The list of highest-paid local public employees contains dozens of recognizable names. But it also include public servants who spend little time in the public eye.

Of the 100 people on the list, 26 have never been quoted in a professional capacity in the News-Leader.

What it cost us

Missouri State University, Springfield Public Schools and the Springfield-Greene County Library District provided the requested data at no charge.

Greene County charged $50, City Utilities charged $65.78 and the City of Springfield charged $124.20.

Ozarks Technical Community College initially estimated it would take almost 30 staff hours and cost $1,029.07 to collect the requested information, in part due to the difficulty of calculating an hourly wage for part-time instructors.

OTC eventually agreed to provide the requested data, minus hourly wages for part-time instructors, for $100, with an additional $150 in costs being waived at the direction of Chancellor Hal Higdon "in the interest of public service."

ONLINE: Exclusive searchable database

Inside, you'll find a detailed list of the TOP 100 highest-paid local public employees in the Springfield area and key information about them.

Online, at News-Leader.com, you'll find extensive, searchable lists of workers paid with public money. MSU coaches. University professors. Utility managers. Parks employees. Police. Firefighters. You can access the data with your home computer or your phone.

Comparing paychecks

As part of its efforts to offer competitive pay, the City of Springfield periodically compares a sampling of local salaries to those offered in a group of benchmark cities.

The city's goal is to offer wages that rank in the "middle third" on a list of sampled salaries. If nine cities provided salaries for police officers, the city would want the local wage to come in at fourth, fifth or sixth place.

In the most recent report, the maximum salaries for three types of police department jobs surveyed were in that target pay range. Firefighters and assistant fire chiefs also fell in the middle, while local fire captains were in the lower third of the salaries surveyed.

Four of the 12 crafts, trades and labor jobs surveyed were in the lower third. One position — parks caretaker — was in the upper third, with the rest in the middle.

Among city leadership, the maximum salaries for the city manager and (vacant) internal auditor position ranked in the top third. Five were in the middle third and two were in the lower third.

The largest gap was in the professional, administrative and technical job category, which includes positions such as engineers and architects as well as 911 operators and administrative assistants. Of the 29 jobs surveyed, 24 offered salaries in the lower third of the benchmark cities.

What should we check next?

The stories in today's News-Leader look at some of the general trends in public employee salaries, while highlighting some of the workers making the most — and the least — in the public sector. But we've only scratched the surface of the public employee salary information you'll find online at News-Leader.com.

We've got several follow-ups planned already — be sure to check out next Sunday's News-Leader for a closer look at Springfield Public Schools — but we'd like to hear from readers, as well.

Spot a trend while scrolling through the databases online? See something curious you'd like us to investigate? Send an email to abridges@news-leader.com or call 417-836-1170 and we'll add it our list.

A two-part series

Today: An investigation into who

is paid what in local government.

Next Sunday: Does it pay off

to be a teacher in Springfield?

About the Author

Amos Bridges is the watchdog reporter for the News-Leader. Have a question for the watchdog to answer? Email him at abridges@news-leader.com or call him at 417-836-1170. Follow him on Twitter@AmosBridgesNL.