Public paying six-figure salaries

Across Spokane County 154 public servants earn six-figure salaries, ranging from school superintendents to the top library official and nine battalion chiefs of the Spokane Fire Department.

A review of the base salaries of these top-tier local government employees found more than $18 million in local tax dollars will be spent this year on these employees. Their total compensation would be much higher if retirement pay, health insurance coverage, and other benefits were included.

And the list would be longer – adding a number of police officers and firefighters – if it included overtime pay. Nor does the list include public employees at federal or state agencies, whose pay levels are set outside this region.

Topping the list are two doctors, co-medical examiners Sally Aiken and John Howard. Next are superintendents of the county’s three largest school districts, followed by Spokane Fire Chief Bobby Williams.

In contrast to Spokane’s stable of more than 150 top-paid employees, 12 employees working for local governments within Kootenai County will be paid more than $100,000 this year. The list, culled from public records requests by The Spokesman-Review, excludes employees of Kootenai Medical Center, a hospital district that hasn’t used its taxing authority for a decade.

Among the findings: Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession, paid a base salary of $138,768, earns less than the city manager of Spokane Valley.

Dianne LaValley, division director for recruitment firm Robert Half International, said fixing such a discrepancy should be easy: “The mayor of Spokane should be paid more. Much more. He should earn $200,000.”

Business executives with a fraction of the mayor’s responsibilities, constituency, employees, and political pressures are paid more than double, she said.

What about the pay of Dave Mercier, who manages the fledging city government of Spokane Valley for $146,171?

“He’s not overpaid. That’s about right,” LaValley said of the city where self-described penny pinchers serve as elected decision-makers. The top five employees of Spokane Valley will earn a combined $615,000 this year.

LaValley places accounting and finance professionals into jobs across the region. She moved here from Southern California and has watched as Spokane’s economy has blossomed, and professional wages have climbed.

“As much as Spokane doesn’t want to admit it, we are growing at a pretty rapid pace and wages better keep up,” she said, pointing out the rise in home prices and living expenses.

She doesn’t flinch at the six-figure pay of public high school and middle school principals.

In all, more than $2.5 million will be paid to the top 23 executives, directors and principals within Spokane Public Schools, the region’s largest school district. Each will earn more than $100,000 in base salary.

The 1,945 teachers in the district will earn an average wage of about $55,000. That’s comparable with prevailing wages for computer programmers, insurance sales agents and massage therapists in Spokane County.

Across Spokane County, the average annual wage was $36,050 last year. In Kootenai County, the average annual wage was $29,775.