By Peninsula Daily News staff and Associated Press
SEATTLE — University of Washington football coach Steve Sarkisian was the top paid Washington state employee in 2010, with $1.98 million in gross pay.
He is followed on the new list from the Office of Financial Management by UW basketball coach Lorenzo Romar, who was paid $1.14 million last year.
(FULL STATE PAY DATABASE — see below.)
Next up are Washington State University basketball coach Ken Bone, UW assistant football coach Nick Holt, WSU President Elson Floyd, and UW athletic director Scott Woodward.
Members of the UW Medical School faculty are next on the list.
Floyd returns $100,000 of his salary to the state because of the financial crisis.
The Office of Financial Management’s report notes that UW and WSU athletic department staff are not paid by taxpayer dollars.
And university researchers, who are also at the top of the list, are paid through research grants, not taxes or tuition.
Despite being the state’s chief executive, Gov. Chris Gregoire is far from being the state’s highest-paid employee.
Gregoire’s gross pay in 2010 well below that of nearly 1,000 other people on the state’s payroll.
Gregoire earned $166,891.
Attorney General Rob McKenna was one of the higher paid elected officials at $151,718 — but still about $15,000 less than Gregoire, meaning he would get about a 10 percent raise if elected to the Governor’s Mansion in 2012.
State legislators — who approve the budget that pays state employees’ salaries — make $42,106, unless they hold a special position, such as House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, who each were paid $50,106 in 2010.
Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, who represents the district that includes Pasco, Burbank, Finley and east Kennewick, made $46,106 from the state last year.
In comparison, Secretary of State Sam Reed earned $117,782. Lt. Gov. Brad Owen made $111,623.
Every two years, the Office of Financial Management produces a report on how much state employees earn.
The numbers aren’t salaries — they’re what the person actually earned during 2010.
So if someone worked only part of the year, only the amount they actually were paid is counted.
The office then publishes a complete list of state employee names, titles and pay on its website for public access.
The full database is online at http://www.thenewstribune.com/statesalaries/#ixzz1Ugju574f
This database shows the gross pay for workers at state of Washington agencies, colleges and universities for 2010.
Data was taken from the Office of Financial Management’s Personnel Detail study, which is updated every two years.
SEARCH TIPS: Search by any part of name. Use “agency” pull down to limit search by a specific department or school. Sort by clicking on header row.
This database was made possible by The (Tacoma) News Tribune.
Here is a second database with the names and pay, put together by the Spokane Spokesman-Review: http://data.spokesman.com/salaries/state/
