Boston employee payroll data shows more big-money employees than ever

City payrolls continue to rise, with more workers making big bucks than ever, according to new city data.

In 2022, 49 city employees made more than $300,000, 771 over $200,000 and 9,101 over $100,000, with the increases particularly driven by newly-settled contracts and “other” pay.

Those marks are higher than in the past two years. In 2021, 40 made more than $300,000, further up from 35 in 2020. For $200,000, those numbers were 744 and 733 over 2021 and 2020. And the total making six figures rose to the current tally from 8,708 in 2021 and 8,451 in 2020.

It’s that time of the year again: the late-winter present the city drops annually in the form of the entire payroll for the previous calendar year. Released this week, the new data shows the above numbers, plus a larger total payroll and number of people getting money from the city.

Overall, the city’s payroll in 2022 was $1.93 billion, up from $1.87 billion and $1.82 billion the previous two years. The total number of people receiving checks also rose, hitting 23,204 in 2022, with the city paying 22,546 and 21,858 the previous two years.

The median salary for city workers has nudged up just slightly, now at around $79,300, up from $78,400 and $78,900 the previous two years.

The three top earners each have already been in the headlines. Number one is Lt. Detective Donna Gavin, who won a big lawsuit over gender discrimination against the city in 2020.

Then there’s former Boston Schools Superintendent Breda Cassellius, who reached a separation agreement with the city after Mayor Michelle Wu took over. Cassellius — listed in the payroll data with a Minneapolis ZIP code, as she returned to her homeland of the North Star State after she and the district split — made $596,949.44, including $417,839.83 in “other” pay following the separation agreement.

The Herald previously reported that under the agreement she was due at least $311,000.

Then next is Jack Dempsey, the Boston Fire Department commissioner who retired halfway through the year and in total brought home $446,406.31. That included $312,752.53 in “other” pay.

Rounding out the top five are cops Lt. Detective Stanley Demesmin and Lt. Sean Smith, who made $397,258.69 and $386,054.33 on the backs of big-money overtime pay. Demesin made more than $196,000 and Smith more than $142,000 in OT last year, good for second-highest and 10th-highest citywide respectively.

That category of “other” pay that propelled the likes of Gavin, Cassellius and Dempsey to the top was unusually high this year, continuing a trend. That mark hit $74.5 million last year, up from $65.1 million the previously year and $57.3 million the one before that.

City officials chalked that largely up to Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund — ESSER — pay, which is federal pandemic-era cash intended to help teachers. The officials said that one-off pay was counted as “other” for payroll purposes.

Officials pointed to this as one notable element of the new payroll data, with the other being that it shows the effect of most of the city’s union contracts getting resolved. Wu — who herself makes $207,000 as mayor — came into office with essentially all contracts open, and now all the big ones besides uniformed police and fire are closed.

That’s why, the city says, pay rose in general, and why retro pay also spiked. That’s at $8.7 million last year, up from $6.5 million the previous year and just $352,000 last year.