1 in 8 MontCo employees make more than $100k a year

About one in every eight Montgomery County employees -- the majority of them public safety officials -- made more than $100,000 last fiscal year, according to an analysis of county data by the Washington Examiner. One in four fire department employees broke the $100k threshold in fiscal 2009, the data shows.

Fairfax County did not release the overtime pay of its employees. Nearly 800 of its total 14,000 county government employees, including seasonal workers, had base salaries of more than $100,000.

Many midlevel Montgomery County employees supplemented their income with hefty overtime pay. Correctional officer Roger Castell made a total of $116,000 starting with a base salary of $62,000, the data shows. Fire Capt. William Richards earned $104,200 just in overtime last year -- the most in the county, boosting his pay to $205,548,000 and making him one of Montgomery's highest-paid county employees. His boss, Fire Chief Richard R. Bowers, earns $190,000 annually.

The data analyzed did not include public school employees. More than 2,500 Montgomery County teachers currently make more than $95,000 a year, school data shows. Pay for Fairfax's teachers is comparable with Montgomery, though slightly less. Nor did the data include health and retirement benefit plans paid to county employees, which are generous compared with most private-sector plans. Pay raises for most county government employees has outpaced the private sector by 15.5 percent in the last four years. SOURCE: Washington Examiner