Part One of a three part series – Opening the Books on local, state and federal salaries and spending
By Aaron Warner
The highest-paid City of Burlington employee earns more than $260,000 – and several others aren’t far behind.
This information comes courtesy of Adam Andrzejeski (an GEE ef ski), founder and CEO of Openthebooks.com, the world’s largest database of public sector spending, whether at the federal, state or local level.
The information provided below comes almost exclusively from Openthebooks.com, and is Part One of a three part series. Part Two will examine spending in other Vermont municipalities and at the State level. Part Three will examine federal spending.
In 2022, Openthebooks.com filed some 50,000 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and captured 25 million public employee pension and salary records. They also were the first to obtain payroll information for the State of California. Their mission is to bring total transparency to the people who often overpay both employees and contractors with their tax dollars.
Shockingly, the federal spending swamp “is dwarfed by the state and local swamps,” Andrzejeski said in a Hillsdale college speech. Of the two million government employees who are “highly compensated” (re: make six figures or more) 1.6 million are state and local.
The City of Burlington is no stranger to highly compensated senior employees – especially among the senior employees of the Burlington Electric Department.
Darren Springer, the General Manager for Burlington Electric Dept. (committed to “net zero by 2030”) was the highest paid city employee at $261,591, up from $214,585 in 2020, according to Openthebooks.com.
Kasti Munir, COO for Burlington Electric, was the second highest paid city employee at $239,637, up from $218,678 in 2020.
Linda Carter, a 43 year employee of Burlington Electric, made $225,275.65 before passing away in April of this year.
Dwayne Mellis, a DEA task force and Burlington policeman, earned $207,912 in 2022.
One big earner was paid not to work, but to stop working. 2022 saw BPD officer Jason Bellevance, who was accused of violent assault, paid over $340,000 to resign.
School Superintendent Thomas Flanagan earned $182,000 in 2022. Mayor Miro Weinberger earned $124,768, according to OpenBooks.com.
OTB has a free downloadable app showing the 23 million government employees and their earnings at every state and local level. All you need to do is put in your zip code to get the data.
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