How much does Boise pay city employees? Search our 2021 salary database
Boise has just about 2,000 employees as of January, city payroll data show.
The highest-paid employee? Rebecca Hupp, the director of the Boise Airport. Her salary is $187,481 annually.
The lowest-paid employees are part-time gate attendants at Zoo Boise, who make $8 an hour.
Mayor Lauren McLean, who is full time, makes $145,099, or $69.76 hourly. The six members of the Boise City Council, who are part time, make $26,430 annually.
The average city employee makes $27.15 an hour, or $56,476 a year as of January.
Search Boise employees salaries
More searches: Canyon County employees; Ada County employees; Nampa City employees;; City of Meridian employees; City of Eagle.
The Statesman obtained this payroll data from the city 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 until now, there wasn’t 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 March 2019. All eight governments — Ada County, Canyon County and the cities of Boise, Caldwell, Eagle, Garden City, Meridian and Nampa — emailed us the records in a timely fashion.
We reached out to human resources and public information officers. They helped us figure out how to make the information as clear and consistent as possible. But some quirks survived. For example, you’ll find employees of Eagle, Kuna and Star police departments in Ada County’s payroll database. That’s because the Ada County Sheriff’s Office has special contracts with those police departments.
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.
This story was originally published May 5, 2021 at 4:00 AM with the headline "How much does Boise pay city employees? Search our 2021 salary database."