Politics & Government

The Highest Paid Public Employees In Alameda County Government

The survey by the Bay Area Newspaper Group also details the "pension pickups" some government employees receive

The 10 most highly compensated employees in Alameda County government received between $372,000 and $720,000 each in salaries and benefits in 2012, according to a survey done by the Bay Area News Group.

At the top of the list is County Administrator Susan Muranishi, who earned a base salary of $311,926 plus health benefits and pension payments for a total compensation of $720,401.

Four of the top 10 county employees work in the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. Three others are physicians.

The BANG survey looked at the compensation of 279,017 public employees at 330 local agencies across the Bay Area. The employees earned a total of $17.6 billion in salary and benefits.

In a story in Sunday editions, the newspapers also detailed what is known as "pension pickups." These are situations where taxpayers pay the employees' share of their pension contribution.

These pickups have been negotiated in contracts. There are 63,000 public employees in the Bay Area who have receive this benefit. In all, the "pickups" totaled $221 million in 2012.

The newspaper listed 51 Bay Area agencies that pick up the pension contribution for all their employees.

Alameda County was not one of the agencies.

However, Muranishi received one of the largest pension pickups on the list.  She had $43,000 in employee pension contribution paid for by taxpayers.

The Castro Valley Sanitary District was one of the 51 agencies on the list. The district paid the pension contributions for 20 employees at a cost of $113,959.

Also on that list is BART, which picked up the pension contribution for 3,373 employees at a cost of $17 million.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District picked up 328 employees' contributions at a cost of $1.1 million.


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