A total of 475 local government employees in New York (outside New York City), most of them police officers, were paid more than $300,000 during the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to records compiled by Empire Center. Three hundred sixty-three of them were employed by local governments in the Long Island counties of Suffolk (210) and Nassau (153).
Local government is a labor-intensive business, and employee compensation is the single biggest item in most municipal budgets. The 2025 edition of “What They Make” the Empire Center’s annual report on public payrolls, allows New York taxpayers to compare this key element of local government costs around the state.
The information in this report—broken down by region and by type of government—is based on data submitted annually to the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) by local governments outside New York City.[i] The NYSLRS data generally does not include specific job titles.
The latest county and municipal payroll database for state fiscal year 2024-25 includes payroll information for full-time and part-time workers actively enrolled in the pension system as of March 2025. The figures used to compute the pay averages include regular salary, overtime and pay for unused sick and vacation time. However, the figures do not include employer pension contributions, health insurance and other fringe benefits—elements of total compensation that can add 35 percent or more to personnel costs.
- New York’s highest-paid local government employee was Curt Beaudry, a Nassau County police official, who received $418,022 in 2024-25.
- Outside police and firefighters, the highest-paid local government employee was Enrique Sewer, a Nassau County correction officer, who was paid $378,238.
- The Mid-Hudson city of Yonkers paid employees an average of $119,839 to its 2,293 employees, the highest among the 61 cities. It was followed by New Rochelle, Rye, Peekskill and Mount Vernon, also in the Mid-Hudson region, which each doled out pay averaging more than $100,000.
- The top-paying local government was the Village of Oyster Bay Cove. Serving an affluent community on Long Island’s North Shore, the village’s 14 employees, all police officers, were paid an average of $198,264.
- Among counties, Nassau had the highest paid employees, with an average of $120,420. This was a 9.3 per cent rise from previous year’s average pay of $110,094. Suffolk county employees also averaged in the six figures, at $101,119.
Average Pay by Local Government
Individual public employee pay records for each year starting in 2008-09 can be found at the Empire Center’s transparency website, SeeThroughNY.net. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, the site includes a searchable database of 177,809 individuals paid a total of $11.8 billion by 1,512 local governments outside New York City. [ii] [iii]
Average Pay by Region
Long Island in Focus
Long Island had the highest average pay among all regions, driven in part by police and fire officials pay, whose average pay reached $165,244.
Suffolk and Nassau counties paid out the most among all local governments in the state with a total pensionable payroll of more than $1 billion each for their 10,493 and 8,308 employees respectively. Eighty-eight of the top 100 highest-paid employees were employed by Suffolk (58) and Nassau (30). 38 per cent (4,016) of Suffolk’s and 55 per cent (4,606) Nassau’s employees received six-figure pay.
Correction officers
The state’s 57 counties outside New York City employed 7,286 correction officers paying them an average of $101,782. Of that total, 2,907 received six-figure pay with 68 receiving over $300,000 – a six-fold increase from previous year’s total of 11. A bulk of this rise is from Nassau County correction officers, among whom 46 received more than $300,000, compared to previous year’s total of 3. Nassau County’s 731 correction officers were paid the highest among all counties, at an average of $151,568 – a 20 percent rise over previous year’s average of $126,346 (707 employees).
Officers in seven other counties – Westchester, Suffolk, Monroe, Orange, Rockland, Putnam, and Tompkins also averaged six-figure pay for their employees.
Fifty Highest Paid Employees – Statewide
Police/Fire Pay
The pay data is broken down into two categories based on the pension system: general employee and police/fire. The police officers and firefighters were by far the best-compensated group in local government, comprising of 71 of the top 100 highest paid employees, with the rest of the 29 being county correction officers.
The 24,400 police/fire employees were paid an average of $123,040. In comparison, the 153,409 general employees were paid less than half as much, averaging at $57,060.
The Nassau County Village of Kensington had the highest pay for police/fire employees, averaging $256,715 for its six-member police force. Six other villages in the same county: Lake Success, Sands Point, Great Neck Estates, Lynbrook, Old Westbury, and Kings Point, had an average pay of over $200,000 for their police and fire officials. Among the rest, the 147 Town of Clarkstown police/fire employees were paid an average of $204,918.
Regional Employment and Pay Summaries
Employees on more than one payroll
The data showed 5,548 individuals who were paid by two or more local government employers in New York during the fiscal year 2024-25.
In most cases, the records suggest that individuals listed under multiple employers either changed jobs during the year or held multiple part-time jobs. Seventy-four individuals had five or more employers during the year, with one individual having as many as 15. Some worked as code enforcement officers, assessors or emergency medical personnel for multiple local governments.
Most individuals working for multiple local governments were part-timers, such as attorneys and assessors, whose combined salaries were well below $100,000. However, 101 employees collected pay over $200,000 by working for two or more local government employers.
In some cases, however, the same person held high-paying jobs with at least two local governments. The highest-paid individual paid concurrently by multiple local governments during 2024-25 was Kathleen Gill, who earned $428,116 as an employee of City of New Rochelle ($363,212), which included a payout from a legal settlement, and the Village of the Mamaroneck ($64,904).
Ten Highest Paid Employees by Region
Who’s missing?
“What They Make” uses pay data reported to NYSLRS. However, if a public employer is not making payments on an individual’s behalf, no data are reported. This can happen, for example, if an employee is already collecting a pension from the system.
Also, many community college employees belong to SUNY’s 401(k)-style Optional Retirement Plan instead of the state’s defined-benefit pension plan. The counties that employ them make no payments to the state pension system on their behalf.
Thanks to pension reforms adopted in 2012, some non-union employees are eligible for the state’s 401(k)-style Voluntary Defined Contribution (VDC) retirement plan. Like the SUNY Optional Retirement Plan, the VDC plan takes the long-term responsibility of funding retirements off the shoulders of taxpayers. In Rochester alone, 11 employees joined during the first two years it was offered.[iv]
Endnotes
[i] A small number of employees are listed as having received $345,000 in pay, reflecting the federal limit on certain salaried pay that could be credited toward pensions during fiscal year 2025. The actual pay may be higher.
[ii] A category labeled “Special Districts,” including library, police, and other districts, exists on the SeeThroughNY.net database, but is not included in this report because the information provided by NYSLRS does not easily allow for such categorization.
[iii] The report includes multiple counts of individuals listed with more than one employer.
[iv] empirecenter.org/publications/retirement-choice-popular-so-far
