How much does Meridian pay city employees? Search our 2023 salary database
The city of Meridian has 642 employees, who make annual salaries anywhere from more than $170,000 a year to $17,000 a year.
The highest-paid employee is Meridian Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea, who was hired in 1996 and makes $173,036.
The lowest-paid employees are Meridian City Council members Joe Borton, Luke Cavener, Jessica Perrault, John Overton and Liz Strader. They are part-time employees and make $17,335 annually. Council President Brad Hoaglun makes $19,000 annually.
Mayor Robert Simison makes $119,770 annually. His Chief of Staff, David Miles, makes $104,488.
Other than Basterrechea, the highest-paid Meridian employees include City Attorney Bill Nary, who makes $162,905, and two police captains, Scott Colaianni and Berle Stokes, who make $154,170 annually.
The average employee pay is $30.11 an hour.
Below is a searchable database showing the salaries of all city employees as of May 2023. Some searches will contain multiple pages of results.
The Idaho Statesman obtained this data through a public records request. Here’s how and why we did it:
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREWhy did we make this public?
Public employees work for taxpayers. Their salaries and wages are public information.
Idaho state employee pay has been publicly available on various websites, including the Idaho Statesman’s, for years. But there hasn’t always been an easy way to see what Treasure Valley’s local governments pay their employees.
We believe there is value in opening the curtains to show how governments spend taxpayer money. Not only can that sunshine help prevent and catch fraud, waste and abuse, it lets us see how wages differ between, and within, the many offices of our local governments.
Have an idea for another database? Think we should make more information public? Contact us at newsroom@idahostatesman.com or tips@idahostatesman.com.
How did we get the data?
We requested payroll data from local governments in May 2023.
What's the fine print?
First, this is a snapshot in time. Employees are hired, fired, promoted and given raises every day.
Second, employees aren’t all paid the same way. For the most part, you can figure out an employee’s annual pay by multiplying their hourly rate by 2,080. But that’s not always true. Some employees are part-time. Some, like council members, are paid a set amount. Others work more hours than normal and/or get overtime — emergency first responders especially — so their annual pay may be higher than their hourly rate would suggest.
Finally, the “hire date” isn’t necessarily the date that person first joined the ranks of public servants. Some employees are seasonal, temporary or took other jobs between stints working for the city or county.
