Kansas paid its public employees nearly $2 billion in 2019. Here’s who made the most
Kansas state agencies paid their public employees nearly $2 billion in the 2019 fiscal year, according to the state’s salary database.
Payrolls at the University of Kansas and Kansas State University alone accounted for nearly a third of that, with a combined payroll of $605 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2019.
All but one of the top 30 highest paid employees worked at a state university. The only exception was Elizabeth B. A. Miller, the chief financial officer at the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System, who had a gross pay of $378,123, which was the 15th highest in the state, according to the database.
The highest paid public paid employee in the state was Jeffrey Paul Long, who was hired in July 2018 as KU’s athletic director. His gross pay of $1,315,384 was nearly double the next highest paid employee, according to the database.
Long’s contract with Kansas Athletics Inc. will pay him $1.5 million per year for five years. Of that amount, $1.3 million is paid by private funds from Kansas Athletics. The remaining $200,00 is paid by the university.
The compensation data is on the basis of gross pay for the year, which includes all pay received by an employee and is not necessarily the employee’s base salary.
The next two highest paid public employees work for the University of Kansas Medical Center. Robert D. Simari, executive vice chancellor, had a gross pay of $688,300, and Richard Joel Barohn, vice chancellor, had a gross pay of $613,908.
With a gross pay of $581,250, KU’s chancellor Doug A. Girod was the fourth highest paid last year. Meanwhile K-State’s president Richard B. Myers rounded out the top five highest paid public employees with a gross pay of $562,500.
Want to know what other state employees made? Search the database by typing in the person’s last name or full name. An auto-complete feature will help you find the persons you are looking for. A drop-down menu will help you find the agency or job title you are searching for.
Kansas public employee salaries
The data includes names of all state employees with the exception of certain positions required to be kept confidential under the Kansas Open Records Act or other state and federal laws.
Those exclusions are specific positions within the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Kansas Highway Patrol, Kansas Department of Revenue and Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission.
Other exclusions are resident workers at state hospital institutions, students and graduate teaching assistants at state universities, National Guardsmen, and home members within the Veteran’s Commission.
