Look up Wichita employee salaries, from cops and bus drivers to City Council and mayor
The city of Wichita paid thousands of employees last year, from the police officers and bus drivers who navigate neighborhood streets to the elected council members and clerks answering resident questions downtown at City Hall.
Collectively, those 3,834 workers made nearly $183.6 million and logged more than 6.8 million hours, a Wichita Eagle analysis of 2021 public payroll data shows. The figures include more than 270,000 overtime hours that cost the city more than $8.8 million, according to the data.
Last year, the city’s top earner, Robert Layton, made a total of $239,065.50 in his role as city manager. Fire department Division Chief James Wilson came in second with $232,353.40 in pay, followed by former Police Chief Gordon Ramsay with $220,791.17; police Lt. Danny Brown with $207,509.44; and City Attorney and Director of Law Jennifer Magana with $200,794.04.
Two-hundred-forty employees made $100,000 or more in total compensation, which consists of all types of pay and benefits, including base, special and overtime wages, the data shows. More than half of the six-figure earners (137) worked for the police department as sergeants (51), lieutenants (34), detectives (31), captains (12), officers (5), deputy chiefs (3) and the chief (1). Overtime pay pushed some of those employees over the $100,000 mark.
Everyone else made less, $42,966.54 in total compensation on average across all departments.
Employees in the law department averaged the highest overall annual pay: $74,701.94. Twenty-eight people, mostly attorneys, worked there last year.
The planning department’s 17 workers had the second-highest average overall pay, with $68,223.39 in total compensation.
Employees in the cultural arts, park and recreation department earned the least on average last year, $14,799.14 annually — a figure largely attributable to the number of lower-wage seasonal and part-time jobs, such as swimming pool lifeguards and recreation aides who don’t work year-round, categorized under that department’s umbrella. Last year, 614 people held jobs there.
Employees of the police department — the city’s largest in 2021, with 943 workers — earned more than a third of the total overtime hours (92,170.79) and got nearly half of the overtime wages ($4.24 million). Public works and utilities department employees came in second with about 27% of the overtime hours (74,424.21) and wages ($2.39 million); the department was the city’s second-largest last year, with 735 workers.
The Eagle has published the payroll data, obtained through a records request, in a database that you can search. It includes public salary information such as overall compensation, hourly wage, overtime hours and other facts for any city of Wichita employee who received pay in 2021.
You can search it below using an employee’s name, department or position, or any combination of those fields. You can also quickly see who earned overtime (2,204 workers), which employees were hired (602 people) or left their jobs (781 people) and who earned $100,000 or more by checking the corresponding boxes.
To see all employees, simply hit the “search” button.
You can see the city’s Top 5 earners in every department here.
This story was originally published August 30, 2022 at 4:17 AM.
