Palm Beach County employee salaries, 2008-2011

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Palm Beach County employee salaries are public records under the Florida Sunshine Law.

Salaries

Palm Beach County provided salary schedules online separated by general and executive employees. Salaries for 50 different general pay grades ranged from $18,665.92 annually, all the way up to $126,553.24 per year, or $139,524.32 with 20 years of service.

Executive compensation in the county is broken up into 10 pay grades.

Pay grade	Minimum	Maximum
E01	$71,321.12	$126,054.24
E02	$76,313.12	$133,981.12
E03	$81,654.56	$143,359.84
E04	$87,370.40	$153,385.44
E05	$93,481.44	$164,130.72
E06	$100,029.28	$175,608.16
E07	$107,026.40	$187,905.12
E08	$114,516.48	$201,065.28
E09	$122,541.12	$215,134.40
E10	$131,116.96	$230,199.84

When promoted from the general pay scale to the executive, the employee received either a 10% raise, or earned the minimum of their new executive grade, whichever was higher. When promoted one executive pay grade, employees earned either a 5% increase, or moved to the minimum of the new range depending on which was higher. Finally, when an employee was promoted two or more executive pay ranges, they received either a 10% increase, or moved to the minimum of the new range depending on which was higher.

In 2011, it was reported that over half of the county's Fire-Rescue employees were paid over $90,000 per year. Twenty-eight of the county's 50 highest-paid employees worked for the Fire-Rescue Department. Six Fire-Rescue employees received gross pay higher than Fire-Rescue Chief Steve Jerauld, whose gross pay was $180,724. The Department's highest-paid employee was Michael Southard, who earned $212,188 for budget year 2010 as a result of payouts for unused vacation days and sick time upon his retirement.

Benefits

According to the Department of Human Resources, employees earn 13 paid vacation days in their first year of employment, 15 in their second year, and 20 vacation days per year after 10 years of service. Unused vacation days are paid in full upon termination of employment, after three months. Employees receive 12 paid holidays per year. 10 are scheduled and two are floating.

Retirement payments are made to the Florida Retirement System. Employees contribute 3% of their gross earnings to the retirement plan.

County employees receive tuition reimbursement totaling $1,800 a year for graduate courses and $1,200 a year for undergraduate courses. Employees also receive free membership discounts to Anheuser-Busch and Universal theme parks and discounts on Tri-Rail, a South Florida commuter train system.

Car use

In 2010, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office had assigned about1,538 take-home vehicles to employees and more than 225 of them lived outside the county. In-county employees paid a fuel charge of $25 every two weeks and out-of-county employees paid $30. The cars could be used off-duty or when on leave as long as they remained within the county.

Phone use

A policy directive in 2008 declared that the new phone policy would limit the amount of county-paid cell phones and would attempt to use stipends whenever possible.

Salary records project

In 2011, Sunshine Review chose 152 local governments as the focus of research on public employee salaries. The editors of Sunshine Review selected eight states with relevant political contexts (listed alphabetically):

1. California
2. Florida
3. Illinois
4. Michigan
5. New Jersey
6. Pennsylvania
7. Texas
8. Wisconsin

Within these states, the editors of Sunshine Review focused on the most populous cities, counties and school districts, as well as the emergency services entities within these governments. The purpose of this selection method was to develop articles on governments affecting the most citizens.

The salary information garnered from these states were a combination of existing online resources and state Freedom of Information Act requests sent out to the governments.

A study published by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia said the city of Philadelphia faced challenges owing to the cost of public employee pensions. The report claimed the amount that Philadelphia paid to pension recipients limited the city’s ability to use its budget effectively.

The report said there were more individuals receiving pension benefits—33,907 claimants in 2006—than workers in the city—28,701. The authors recommended three steps towards addressing the problem of high costs in pensions: improved data collection, expanded transparency initiatives, and reductions to the city's overall budget.

Salary schedules can be published as ranges, not as specific compensation figures, and may leave out compensation received through health and retirement benefits, as well as benefits such as commuter allowances and cell phone reimbursements. This project aimed to close the gap and provide a more accurate picture of public employee salaries for the sake of public education and transparency.

See also

• Public employee salaries

External links

• State Budget Solutions -- Florida