Data App: Government Employee Salary Database

This afternoon we pushed the first 2012 update of our government employee salary database, bringing new data to nearly half of the 140 entities currently found in our records. With this update, we now have searchable salary data for more than 667,000 public employees.

This push provides updated information for 69 entities, including all schools, university hospitals and other entities in the University of Texas System, Texas A&M University System and University of North Texas System. The University of Texas at Dallas, which was entered into the database in the last update partially incomplete due to high demand, is now available with all expected data fields. Also, we have updated the major cities of Austin, Fort Worth and San Antonio and major counties of Bexar County and Harris County.

The complete list of payroll record updates are as follows: Bexar County Appraisal District, Travis County Appraisal District, the city of Amarillo, the city of Arlington, the city of Austin, the city of Brownsville, the city of Fort Worth, the city of Rockwall, the city of Rowlett, the city of San Antonio, Blinn College, Tarrant County College, Bexar County, El Paso County, Harris County, Brownsville ISD, Dallas ISD, Fort Bend ISD, Pasadena ISD, Round Rock ISD, San Antonio ISD, Sabine River Authority, Capital Metro, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, StarTran, VIA Metro, Midwestern State University, Prairie View A&M University, Tarleton State University, Texas A&M International University, Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University at Galveston, Texas A&M University System, Texas A&M University-Central Texas, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Texas A&M University-San Antonio, Texas A&M University-Texarkana, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, Texas AgriLife Research, Texas Engineering Experiment Station, Texas Engineering Extension Service, Texas Forest Service, Texas State University System Administration, Texas Transportation Institute, Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at Brownsville, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at El Paso, the University of Texas at Tyler, the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, University of Texas-Pan American, the University of North Texas, the University of North Texas at Dallas, the University of North Texas System, the University of Texas at San Antonio, the University of Texas System, West Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, the University of North Texas Health Science Center, and the University of Texas Medical Branch.

The list of 25 highest-paid employees had some motion with this push. The cost of admission on this list rose by $50,000, which led to the dropping of University of Texas Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa, professor Anthony Estrera from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and UT-Austin athletic director Darrell Dodds. John Mendelsohn, the former president of MD Anderson, also no longer shows up in the list due to retirement.

Taking Mendelson’s place as president of MD Anderson, and his spot on the list at No. 4, is Ronald DePinho ($1.4 million). The three other new members are all from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Assistant professor Eric Sabonghy ($825,000) is No. 17, assistant professor of family medicine Thomas Murphy ($778,000) is No. 22 and assistant professor of neurosurgery Peng Chen ($760,000) is #24.

Other big movers? Most of the list who dropped in ranking did not actually receive less money, but were just outpaced by others who received raises. August Garrido Jr. ($950,000, No. 13), the head coach of the baseball program at UT Austin, received a $50,000 raise, and jumped three spots. The largest drop in salary since our last update was by Andrew Burgess ($800,000, No. 21), a visiting professor at UT Health Science Center at Houston, who was last reported to be earning $1 million.

In the case of each entity, the data was correct at the time of our requests under the Texas Public Information Act. The app's agency page lists the dates that we received the data for each entity.

Let us know if you have feedback or corrections or if you’d like us to include a particular entity in a future update.