FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - January 28, 2020
Contact: Caitlin Gilligan
518-434-3100 x111
caitling@empirecenter.org


2019 State Payroll Now Posted at SeeThroughNY

The complete 2019 New York state government payroll is now posted on SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s government transparency website.

https://www.empirecenter.org/publica...seethroughny/?

The updated database includes the names, titles, base pay rates and total pay of more than 307,000 individuals who worked in the state’s executive, legislative or judicial branches at any point during calendar year 2019. Taxpayers can search state government payrolls dating back to 2008 on the SeeThroughNY.net website.


During 2019, the data show:

• The highest-paid employee on the state payroll for the second consecutive year was Dr. Gary Green, a Clinical Associate Professor of Health Science at SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse. His pay totaled $753,842.

• A total of 2,661 state employees, including 1,756 executive branch workers, were paid more than Governor Andrew Cuomo’s newly increased $200,000 salary.

• Included in the 100 highest-paid state employees are four SUNY coaches. At SUNY Buffalo, football coach Lance Leipold was paid $663,500 (#6) and basketball coach Nathaniel Oats was paid $442,105 (#61). At SUNY Stony Brook, football coach Charles Priore was paid $465,462 (#46), and athletic director Shawn Heilbron was paid $425,714 (#84).

• All but two of the 100 highest-paid state government employees worked for either the State University of New York (SUNY) or the City University of New York (CUNY).

• Four of the top 100 earners received six-figure raises. They were Lance Liepold, football coach at SUNY Buffalo, whose base pay was boosted $203,162 to $474,300; Gary Bie, payroll vice president at Stony Brook Hospital, whose base pay was increased $131,561 to $647,718; Carol Gomes, payroll assistant vice president of hospital affairs at Stony Brook Hospital, whose base pay was raised $120,838 to $636,638; and Brian Magee, assistant professor at Downstate Medical Center, whose base pay was elevated $108,930 to $199,757.

Not reflected in the data are costs of pensions, health insurance for employees and retirees, and other benefits.

The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.