Original article published at The National Desk.

WASHINGTON (TND) — Amtrak released a portion of its payroll information in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by Open the Books, marking the first instance of such disclosure. Only the top ten executives’ income was disclosed by the agency.

Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski joined The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat to break it down.

“At Amtrak, we discovered that you just can't follow the money. They denied our request for the rank and file workers at Amtrak, saying that it's an invasion of their personal privacy to disclose just how much they make to all of us and taxpayers,” he said. “Amtrak is a federally chartered Corporation. They're heavily subsidized by the United States taxpayer.”

The Amtrak payroll is taxpayer funded. OpenTheBooks discovered that the average Amtrak employee makes $121,000, putting the company at the top of the top paid list of federal agencies.

“Since they were chartered in 1971, they've lost money every single year. Last year, they lost a billion dollars. Those 19,000 rank and file employees, they pulled cash compensation of $2.3 billion last year,” Andrzejewski said. “This morning, I did the math. The average employee is highly compensated at Amtrak. They make an average of $121,000 a year and that puts Amtrak at the top of the Top Paid list of federal agencies.”