Question 1: How did the city’s payroll change compared to previous years?
In 2019 there were only 49 people in the City of Austin making $200,000 or more. (gross pay).
That slowly increased over the next few years, and by 2023 there were 172 people.
In 2024, we’ve uncovered there was a huge increase. There were 297 people who made $200,000.
Austin already had more $200,000 earners than Dallas and more than twice as many as Houston. We don’t have those cities’ data for 2024 yet, but it seems likely that Austin is once again paying out some of the highest salaries in Texas.
Question 2: Who were the highest earners in the city?
Bob Kahn, the head of Austin Energy, was the top earner by far with over $480,000. His predecessor Jackie Sargent was on top of the payroll for years, but Kahn is making even more than she did.
TC Broadnax ($362,000) was in second place even though he didn't start working until May. His assistant city manager Robert Goode was in third place.
Police sergeants and other Austin Energy officials made up the rest of the top 10.
Question 3: Take us through the rest of the payroll. Have we seen salary increases there?
City of Austin Payroll
|
|
2023
|
2024
|
|
$175-200k
|
225
|
339
|
|
$150-175k
|
510
|
763
|
|
$125-150k
|
1,185
|
1,437
|
|
$100-125k
|
2,111
|
2,407
|
(Table to show on broadcast)
There’s 1,000 more people earning six-figures now than there was last year.
5,243 six figure earners last year. Only 4,203 six figure earners in 2023
The total number of employees on the payroll barely increased (about 21,000 people). So it’s not like the workforce is getting much bigger. They’re just paying more.
Question 4: Some of those 2023 numbers are different from what your team has shared with us before. Why was there a change?
The City sent us their 2023 payroll early last year. My colleague came on this show and did a detailed report about it.
We realized later in the year that the payroll was missing the name of Jackie Sargent, the former head of Austin Energy.
We asked the city why she was missing. They sent us an “updated payroll” with Sargent’s name - and 5,000 new people that were missing from the original payroll.
We obtained their internal emails about the mistake, and it doesn’t seem there was any intent to purposefully hide information.
But it’s still a huge discrepancy. The City misled the public and made it impossible to track how much of your tax money was being spent on high-earning public employees.