By Megan Poinski
[email protected]
Out of 148,362 people who were paid any sort of salary by the state of Maryland in fiscal 2010, about 3% of them made six-figure salaries.
According to a list obtained from the Comptroller’s Office, 5,139 government employees were paid more than $100,000 in the last fiscal year. This listing included full-time, part-time and contract employees. The names and salaries of top-paid employees can be found here.
Almost two-thirds of them – or 3,310 – worked for the University of Maryland, which includes the flagship College Park campus, as well as the campuses in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, University College, and the Eastern Shore. It also includes the university’s Center for Environmental Science and administrative offices.
No other government department came close to the number of six-figure salaries paid by the university, though the next largest group – 438 making more than $100,000 – came from state universities and colleges. This includes state schools like Towson University, Coppin State, the University of Baltimore, Frostburg State, Bowie State, and Salisbury University.
Based on the number of full-time employees listed in the state’s audited Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (page 151), 9.4% of the 39,481 employees in higher education make six-figure salaries, and only 2.3% of the 60,734 employees in the rest of state government make $100,000 or more.
Top-salaried faculty add to reputation, prestige
Mike Lurie, media relations and web manager for the University System of Maryland, said that many of the top-salaried employees who work at the university do a lot for the reputation, exposure and prestige of the institution.
Athletic coaches can enhance the university’s visibility, and successful teams bring in revenue, he said. Top administrators ensure that the institutions run well and attract researchers and talent to be located in Maryland. If they started working for the private sector, Lurie said, they would also command large salaries.
Physicians who are on the university’s payroll do double duty, both working in private practice and as administrators at the medical school. Ed Fishel, news bureau director for the University of Maryland–Baltimore, said that physicians and top researchers also attract large grants, which helps to create new jobs.
“We are concerned with keeping those people in the system rather than having them wooed away to other places,” Lurie said. “We want them helping our economy and boosting our economic prospects, instead of adding to that of another state.”
Looking at gross salaries – the total amount each employee was paid by the state, with furloughs and other cuts already taken out – the top 137 were employees of a state university.
Lurie said that there is no doubt many of the university system’s employees are well paid, but the total amounts appearing in the Comptroller’s Office records may represent some funds that are not paid by state taxpayers, including research grants.
Physicians also make money from private practice, which tends to drive about two-thirds of their total income, Lurie said. Fishel said that grant money is sometimes counted in these salary reports as well. Coaches are paid by the state, Lurie said, but they are also paid with support from private groups and for media exposure.
Coaches and top docs
The top-paid non-university employee was Dr. Linda DeHoyos, a psychiatrist and radiologist who did contract work at the Thomas B. Finan Hospital Center through the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She made $287,036, according to the comptroller’s records.
The next highest paid non-university employee was former State Retirement and Pension System chief investment officer, Mansco Perry III. He was the state’s 198th best paid employee last year, making $265,057 from a contract.
Athletic coaches took home the largest of the large paychecks. The information from the Comptroller’s Office put everything that employees made – including overtime and additional pay – into the column reporting gross pay.
According to the salary information received by MarylandReporter.com, University of Maryland head men’s basketball coach Gary Williams took home the largest amount of pay, making more than $2.3 million in fiscal year 2010.
A relatively distant second, getting paid less than half what Williams received, was Ralph Friedgen, the Terrapins’ former football head coach. He made close to $1.1 million.
The third highest salary went to University of Maryland’s head women’s basketball coach, Brenda Frese. She was paid $957,523.
After Frese, top salaries went to the University of Maryland’s Medical School Dean E. Albert Reece; Dr. Stephen Bartlett, chairman of the surgery department at the medical school and chief of surgery at the UM Medical Center; and the hospital’s cardiac surgery center chief and director of heart and lung transplants, Dr. Bartley Griffith.
Bottom of the pay scale
The way that the salary information was tabulated makes it difficult to tell how many employees are on the other end of the spectrum and making little money. The spreadsheet provided by the Comptroller’s Office includes all employees who were paid by the state, but does not indicate if those employees are full-time or part-time. Also, according to the records, employees who are paid through a contract have an expected salary of $0. The actual amount that each contractual employee was paid is listed under his or her gross pay, but the spreadsheet does not indicate how much work was done in each contract.
According to the information received, 29,978 employees — about 20% — have listed salaries that are $40,000 or less. However, the spreadsheet includes 58,267 employees with no listed salary because they are being paid according to a contract.
Including contract employees, 89,507 employees were paid less than $40,000 during fiscal year 2010. However, 4,601 of them had listed salaries that were more than $40,000, but were not paid that much; most only worked part of the year.
@MICHAEL, PHILMYCRACKEN, IF U DON’T LIKE MY POST, TOUGHS-IT AND DON’T READ IT!
We are talking BIG money here.We are getting taxed to death,meaning there alot of people who cannot buy food,or go to a doctor.I think what we are saying when does it stop.How much money does sports put in my pocket,NONE.When you buy something with a SPORTS star on it,cost you money,that is tax on the thing you just bought.I do not like any kind of SPORTS.You can say all you want,its BIG money,and I do not have it to give to them.Their name or face on what you buy,cost you more to buy.We have a LOTTERY put in place,so FIRE,POLICE and TEACHERS to keep them happy.Now we have more games then before,all to get the FIRE,POLICE and TEACHERS happy.Why should a person thats makes 7.00 dollars an hour pay to HELP them get more money,they dont’.Now we have slot machines so,the FIRE,POLICE and TEACHERS can get MORE MONEY.When does it end? There is more I would like to say,I am just to mad! THANKS,JIMMYP
Maybe these people ought to be the ones footing the bill for the illegal aliens.
I don’t begrudge Gary Williams or anybody else on that list making big bucks. C’mon, I love the terps and you know Gary Williams probably doesn’t probably even make as much as other coaches. And as for the University of Maryland physicians and board members making big bucks? I’m all for it. That is what America IS people – you want to make bucks, live the American dream. I don’t begrudge rich people their money. But everybody in this country wants to make big bucks like right now! You want a doctor who works for peanuts? Then you might be putting your life in danger. Give me the good doctor who makes big bucks. The thing that should upset everybody is the information from Jay Hancocks January 2010 blog: “Elected Baltimore officials can start drawing their pensions at very young ages. You have to put in 16 years of service regardless of age. Or you have to put in 12 years — three elected terms — and be over age 50.” Like convicted crook Sheila Dixon (Oh! poor thing) gets a nice $83,000 pension yearly.
I just hope they are paying something towards their retirement and medical coverage not like the teachers in Wisconsin. Government service should not be a get rich position like many have become. In the beginning of this Country the politicians who went to Washington were not paid and did it because they loved the Country. Now like so many other things working for the Government or the people is not for love or pride of Country it is just to get rich. I also find the fact that sport coaches are the highest paid on the list to be obscene. That says a lot about the priorities of the State at these schools, they want the best sports players not necessarily the smartest or brightest students. Why do taxpayer funded public school spend so much on sports, isn’t that for the private schools to do. I am sure these high paid sports directors will attract quite a few illegal alien students at in State tuition prices. As a State worker of almost 30 years I make 42K a year, pay into my retirement and medical coverage and do not have enough left over to pay for my child to even attend one of these State Universities. Maybe Owe’Malley and the other tax and spender’s in Annapolis can explain that.
Dot, your reply is so misinformed that I’m having trouble prioritizing my response, but let me see if I can address the issues that you so woefully misunderstand.
1. Teachers in Wisconsin, in their opulent town homes and Honda civics, have on their paycheck, just like on your government paycheck, itemized payments in to their pension and health care. It ain’t free.
2. “Government workers,” as I’ve clarified in response to Bob, and “politicians in Washington,” are two separate entities. The folks that are being targeted by this “big expose” (really? College b-ball coaches make a lot of money? Knock me over with a feather!) aren’t representatives, but are rather experts making a living in the employ (not *at the expense*) of the state. I’m against career politicians too, but a doctor or a professor who is working to train the next generations of surgeons and scholars is not, in my book, a wasteful expense.
3. To make the leap from a school spending a lot of resources on sports (which I agree is worth discussing) and illegal aliens flocking in droves to play hoops is really quite silly.
4. I’m baffled that, as a state worker, you can be so confused as to how *your* pension and health care work. Have you looked at your paycheck recently? I would suggest reading the following article to educate yourself on the lies being peddled in Wisconsin:
http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/02/25/the-wisconsin-lie-exposed-taxpayers-actually-contribute-nothing-to-public-employee-pensions/
Bob, just from reading your post, clearly you are not the smartest person in the world.
Ummmm I think Bob is onto something. Something stinks in Maryland.
I AM NOT THE SMARTEST PERSON IN MARYLAND FOR SURE! BUT THEIR IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE. WAKE UP PEOPLE OF MARYLAND. THE FED. AND THE STATE BUDGET ARE THE HAVES AND WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE HAVE NOTS!
Bob, to begin with, you look like a fool typing in all caps. Also, it’s “there, ” not “their” – perhaps you should have paid closer attention to one of the five-figure teachers that you were inflicted upon during your time in school.
I think in the Tea-bagger craze that’s caught this nation, the notion of “government employee” has been muddied. I, in common with the Tea-baggers, am against the notion of the career politician, as that post was established by our founding fathers to be a public service for which one volunteered and then, following their tenure, returned to their original means of subsistence. Doctors, lawyers, professors, coaches etc. are by no means volunteers and their services are commensurate to the value that their expertise has earned them. We pay these folks a lot of money because they can do things that (contrary to our senators and congressman) nobody else can.
What I find ironic is that this clearly biased report singles out the university doctors which are training the next generation of live-savers, however when the Obama-care legislation was being passed doctors were lauded as heroes who were being trampled on by Big Brother. Which is it going to be? Are doctors heroes to save lives only when they are in the emergency room, but government fat-cats when they’re training the next round of ER surgeons? You can’t have your tea and drink it too…