The $200,000 annual salary, once regarded as an extravagance in local government, is now commanded by a growing number of officials across the Washington region, according to a review of payrolls by The Washington Post.
School superintendents receive the highest salaries, as much as $250,000 annually, which are boosted by performance bonuses and benefit packages that can add tens of thousands of dollars to their compensation. They are followed closely by county administrators, police chiefs and other senior appointees, with salaries approaching or even exceeding $200,000.
Martin J. Briley, Prince William County's economic development director, for example, was paid $234,000 in 2004. Bruce Romer, Montgomery County's chief administrative officer, made $208,000. Anthony H. Griffin, Fairfax's appointed county executive, received nearly $195,000. And D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, the region's best -paid local law enforcement official, made $175,000.
The salaries are greater than those of top elected officials, including D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), $145,000; Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D), $143,000; and Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D), $132,000.
Penelope A. Gross, a Fairfax County supervisor, said the bigger dollars for appointed officials reflect competition from the private sector and the complexity of the issues requiring their attention, including homeland security; rapid development; and services for immigrants, the elderly and the disabled.
The increased scope of local government has "made this a lot more difficult than just making sure the police and fire departments have their equipment and that garbage is being picked up on time," said Gross (D-Mason), chairman of the board's personnel committee. "You need a really special person, and those people cost money."
The Post reviewed salary records from 2003 and 2004 for more than 70,000 public-sector employees in 14 counties and municipalities, including the District of Columbia and Prince George's, Montgomery , Howard and Anne Arundel counties in Maryland and Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties in Virginia. Although comparisons are difficult because some counties did not include overtime pay or part-time workers, the records provide revealing snapshots of compensation at all levels of local government.
The survey found, for example, that overtime pay -- driven by staff shortages and an increasing volume of emergency calls -- has made police officers and firefighters among the region's best-compensated government workers. Half of the 378 Montgomery employees making $100,000 or more a year are police or fire personnel. A lieutenant in the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department has earned more in overtime this year ($83,364) than his base salary ($72,173).
Records also show that since the D.C. Council and the now-inactive financial control board eliminated a salary cap seven years ago, the number of employees paid $100,000 or more -- not including school officials -- has grown from about a dozen to more than 660, many of them physicians and lawyers who could command far more in private practice.
Competition from the private sector is not the only factor contributing to the increase in the region's local government salaries. Other cities and counties, eager to recruit managers capable of contending with clogged roadways, crime and economic development, are helping to heat up the job market.
"You have more savvy people running for office in these communities, and they understand that you need a professional to deal with these issues," said Jacqueline Byers, the research director for the National Association of Counties. "For a while in the mid-1990s, if you were making $100,000, it was pretty good for a county manager, but it has been creeping up. Then it was $175,000, and now $200,000 is going to be a competitive salary pretty soon."
Comparisons with the federal government are difficult, in part because Congress has set limits on what top executives may be paid. A Cabinet secretary, for instance, receives $175,700, and most top political appointees are paid $128,200 to $158,100. The government's career executives earn $104,927 to $158,100.
School superintendents began earning substantially more than other top local officials in the 1980s, Byers said, as housing markets boomed and quality schools became a priority for home buyers with children. "That broadened the desire of many communities to make their schools better-performing to attract the well-to-do, and the ones that were underperforming were looking for superintendents to make their districts more attractive," Byers said.
Nationwide, the median salary of superintendents in districts with more than 25,000 students is $174,805, according to the Education Research Service, an Arlington-based foundation.
Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said that superintendents' pay is also rising because the pool of candidates for hot-seat jobs in troubled districts is limited. Many school chiefs last only two or three years. The District has had five superintendents in a decade, and Prince George's, the second-largest school system in Maryland, has had two since 1999.
"There are not a lot of superintendents available," Houston said. "People are not going into the jobs, which have become lightning rods in most communities. What happens is the school board, if they get a good person, they have been raising the salaries to hold on to them, because the headhunters come and try to take them away."
The District's Clifford B. Janey and Prince George's County's Andre J. Hornsby are the highest paid in the region, at $250,000, not including performance-related bonuses and deferred benefits. The $257,000 salary of Montgomery's superintendent, Jerry D. Weast, was reduced this year by $20,000, an amount now contributed annually to his retirement fund. Fairfax County's Jack D. Dale receives $237,000, with an additional $57,000 in benefits. Anne Arundel's superintendent, Eric J. Smith, makes $204,000 a year, and his contract includes benefits and incentives estimated at an additional $100,000.
After superintendents, the highest-paid officials are appointed county executives and managers, who run the day-to-day operations of government. Romer, Montgomery's chief administrative officer, is among the best-paid in the region, as is Robert C. Bobb, the District's top administrator, whose salary is $185,000.
Griffin, the Fairfax county executive who oversees a $2.5 billion budget and 11,000 employees, was appointed in 2000 at a salary of $155,000, with $16,000 in deferred compensation and retirement benefits. Since then, he has received raises of 4 to 7 percent a year, bringing him this year to about $195,000, not including $14,000 in deferred compensation and benefits.
Gross said that in today's job market he is a relative bargain.
"If a bus hit Tony Griffin tomorrow and we had to go out for a search, we would be hard-pressed to find someone to apply for the amount we're paying Tony," she said.
Her sentiment is shared by some anti-tax groups, which usually pillory local governments for profligate spending. Arthur Purves, president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, said the salaries of top managers are driven by market forces. "I'm going to assume, at my own peril, that if these folks resign, that's what it would cost to get a replacement," he said. "I think you have to pay top dollar for top leaders."
Purves said he is more concerned about raises granted to unionized public employees, including teachers. "The $200,000 salary is a favorite thing for taxpayers to attack, but the excess is lower down in the ranks," he said.
When Craig S. Gerhart was appointed county executive in Prince William County in 2000, he was paid $132,000. Over the last four years, his salary has risen to $185,000, a 40 percent increase. The county's population has grown during that period from 280,000 to 336,000. Economic development has mushroomed.
Liz Bahrnes, a spokeswoman for the county, said Gerhart's raises were rewards for "keeping the county's financial picture in check, to make sure we grow in proper ways."
It was Gerhart's decision to raise Briley's salary as the county's director of economic development from about $213,000 to $234,000 this year. The county executive said the salary is warranted by the number of corporations that have migrated to the county, including America Online.
In 1997, Gerhart said, the county ranked 45th in Virginia in new investment. By 2002, Prince William was No. 1, drawing $497 million. "That's a measurable way of tracking someone's performance," he said.
Briley's income has had the same upward surge, more than doubling from the $116,905 he was paid by Prince William in 1999.
After Ramsey, the highest-paid police chief in the region is Montgomery's J. Thomas Manger. He is paid $172,000, about $20,000 more than Prince George's County's Melvin C. High. Nationally, the median salary for chief law enforcement officials in jurisdictions with 500,000 to 1 million residents was $139,578 in 2003, according to a survey by the International City/County Management Association.
Douglas F. Gansler (D), Montgomery's elected state's attorney, is among the highest-paid local prosecutors, making more than $135,000 last year. Frank R. Weatherbee, the state's attorney in Anne Arundel County, was paid $123,000, and Prince George's County's Glenn F. Ivey (D) made nearly $120,000.
Gansler, who oversees 63 attorneys, is paid less than Montgomery's director of procurement, its finance director and the head of the public libraries, not to mention some first-year law school graduates who join private firms.
"My wife wants to know when I'm going to get a real job," he said. "Obviously, you don't go into public service for the money. That's clear."
Staff writers Stephen Barr, Christian Davenport, Lori Montgomery, Lisa Rein, Katherine Shaver and Eric M. Weiss contributed to this report.
