City employees will earn $145.3 million this year

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Gazette has modified the city-employee payroll database so that full names have been truncated to first-name initial, and last name. Read an explanation here.

The payroll office at Colorado Springs city government stays busy.

Colorado Springs’ 2,370 city employees will collectively earn $145.3 million this year.

That pile of money has a big bull’s-eye on it going forward as at least one city councilman and some taxpayers continue to call for employee pay cuts to help balance the 2010 budget.

City officials released the 2009 base pay of all employees and some city enterprises in response to a request filed by The Gazette, which analyzed the data Friday. The figures do not include benefits or other compensation, such as overtime.

The average annual wage for all workers in El Paso County was $41,444 in the first quarter of 2009, according to the state Department of Labor and Employment. Among city employees, 2,135 workers, or 90 percent of the city workforce, make more than that.

Public safety employees make up about two thirds of the city’s workforce, and they tend to make more money because of the nature of their jobs, said human resources director Ann Crossey.

“They don’t compete against housekeepers, retail staff, waitresses, that kind of thing,” she said. “For example, if you went out and talked to the defense contractors … you would find that most of those jobs are professional degreed positions, exempt, and their average salary is much higher. Your average salary can go by industry or the types of jobs that you have. It’s not what the average job is. It’s what jobs are being performed.”

Among The Gazette’s other findings:

• The average salary for city employees this year is $61,394. The median salary –- the point at which half the salaries are higher and half are lower -- is $61,888. The median is less influenced by a relative handful of exceptionally high or low salaries. The fact that the median is so close to the average indicates the salaries follow a relatively even progression from low to high.

• City Manager Penelope Culbreth-Graft is the highest-paid employee, at a base pay of $210,000 this year. Other top earners include City Attorney Patricia Kelly ($183,736), Chief Financial Officer Terri Velasquez ($165,898) and Assistant City Manager Nancy Johnson ($165,000). The third-highest paid employee, Assistant City Manager Mike Anderson, who makes $165,898, announced his retirement Thursday.

• Sixty-seven city employees make at least $100,000 a year.

• Among the lowest-paid conventional employees, 27 workers earn 30,000 per year or less, including maintenance workers, equipment operators, office specialists and others.

• Police Officer is the title held by the largest number of employees, including 522 workers. The average pay for a police officer is $65,373. The second-largest group of employees is firefighters, including 124 workers with that title. Their average pay is $60,209.

Councilman Tom Gallagher has proposed pay cuts to help bridge a $37 million budget shortfall next year and avert layoffs of police officers and firefighters.

But other officials, including Mayor Lionel Rivera and Culbreth-Graft, oppose the idea.

Gallagher says pay cuts will help the city get through tough times, but the mayor said the city projects declining revenues through at least 2013.

“The only way that I believe that City Council can do their job is to reduce the size of government and the services that we provide because we can’t afford to continue to provide everything we’ve been providing,” Rivera said during a crowded budget hearing Thursday.

Wage cuts or layoffs might not be necessary if voters approve issue 2C on the Nov. 3 mail-in ballot. The measure would triple the city government’s property tax rate, and backers say the additional money would allow the city to maintain 2009 funding levels.