Timothy Firestine, Montgomery County’s chief administrative officer, remained the county’s highest-paid employee in 2015, making $297,999 last year.
Firestine, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the county, was paid $4,000 more than he received in 2014, according to a list of annual salaries for 9,101 full- and part-time county employees posted on the county’s dataMontgomery web portal this week. The data does not include salaries for employees of Montgomery County Public Schools.
Bethesda Beat’s 2015 list of the county’s most highly paid employees includes those who earned more than $210,000 annually and includes several department heads, as well as firefighters who received significant amounts of overtime that in some cases totaled more than their annual salaries.
Patrick Lacefield, a county spokesman, said providing overtime pay to firefighters can often cost less than hiring additional firefighters because the county can save on the costs of benefits, which can add about 25 percent to 30 percent to compensation costs.
In 2015, 25 county employees made more than $200,000, a slight decrease from 2014, when 27 employees were paid more than that amount, according to the data.
County Executive Ike Leggett ranked as the 42nd highest-paid county employee, making $190,013.95 in 2015.
The website list, which lists employees alphabetically, includes annual salary and gross pay, which is base salary, overtime pay and additional pay such as bonuses.
According to the data, current annual salaries listed for some employees are higher than the gross pay they received in 2015. That’s because the employees received an approximately 5 percent raise during the calendar year, so their gross pay reflects the slightly lower former salary they were paid for part of the year, while the annual salary represents their current pay rate after receiving the mid-year raise, according to Shawn Stokes, the county’s human resources director.
Here’s a list of the 15 highest-paid county employees in 2015:
15. Harrash N. Segal, chief information officer, Department of Technology Services
Gross pay: $211,506.47
Annual pay: $215,120
Data provided by Data.MontgomeryCountyMD.gov Photo via MontgomeryCountyMd.gov
