This is an old edition of the Public Pay app. See the latest edition here.

About the 2021 Public Pay database

What is it?

The Post-Dispatch's Public Pay database helps readers track salaries at many of the area's public agencies, including St. Louis, St. Louis County and the state governments of Illinois and Missouri. It includes employees of both states' university systems, local school districts, area municipalities, and taxpayer-funded agencies.

To obtain this data, the Post-Dispatch submits more than 100 requests for payroll records with area governments, schools and public entities using Missouri's Sunshine Law and Illinois' Freedom of Information Act.

The first edition of this app was published in 2016 and it has been updated annually.

What's new this year?

Previous editions of the Public Pay database published salaries for teachers using data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The DESE data included only certificated staff members, such as teachers and principals who must receive certification from the state before working in schools.

This meant our salary listings for school districts didn't include other staff, such as cooks, custodians or tech support. Over the years, issues with the quality of the DESE data also emerged. So, in 2021, the Post-Dispatch stopped using the state data, and instead is publishing salary data obtained directly from St. Louis-area school districts. The result is a database that includes all full-time district employees.

Note: Teachers and other district employees often perform extra duties, like coaching or sponsoring a club, for which they receive additional pay. Some school districts break out each of these duties separately for every employee. In such cases, the Post-Dispatch lists the employee only once, with a job title reflecting the employee's highest-paying duties, and with a salary that is the sum of the pay for all the employee's duties.

How is the data processed?

Each local government or public agency responds to our request differently. Our reporters spend many hours cleaning, standardizing and combining the data from these responses.

Among the many issues:

  • For hourly workers, some agencies provide only the hourly wage (e.g. "$25/hour"). Others multiply the wage by the hours worked to provide an annualized salary or an estimated annualized salary.
  • Many agencies delineate which employees are full-time and which are part-time. Others may provide a "full-time equivalency" figure. Some provide no information on full-time status.
  • Governments and agencies sometimes dispute whether the Sunshine Law requires them to provide certain types of information, or whether the law even applies to them.
  • Agencies use many different file formats. Some agencies provide structured data in spreadsheets, which is ideal. But others use formats which make data extraction difficult.

How do you calculate median salaries and other figures?

The Post-Dispatch calculates the following statistics for agencies and departments within those agencies:

  • Number of full-time employees
  • Median salary
  • Average salary
  • Number of full-time employees by salary range
  • Median experience
  • Top earner

These figures are meant to reflect the salaried, full-time employees of a public agency. Here is the methodology we use to classify employees as full-time before running the calculations:

  • We exclude any employee for whom no salary figure is listed.
  • We exclude any employee listed by an agency as part-time, temporary or seasonal; or who earns less than $20,000.
  • We exclude hourly-wage employees for whom no annualized salary was provided.
  • If an agency didn't specify the part-time/full-time statuses of its employees, all employees earning more than $20,000 were included.

Because this database shines light on public agencies, we make an exception to include part-time elected officials, such as city councilmembers or municipal judges.

What are quasi-public agencies?

Missouri's Sunshine Law applies to public bodies such as city governments as well as to "quasi-public governmental bodies" — organizations that accept public funds, enter into contracts with public bodies, or that perform public functions.

Caveats for specific agencies

States and counties

  • 22nd Circuit Court: Department, hire dates not provided.
  • Jefferson County: Department not provided. Salaries are estimates based on monthly check totals.
  • St. Louis County: Department not provided.
  • State of Illinois: Salaries reflect actual paid totals for the 2020 fiscal year.
  • State of Missouri: Positions not provided. Salaries shown are annual estimates based on monthly pay totals.

Municipalities

  • Belleville: Hire dates not provided for some employees.
  • St. Ann: Salaries are estimates based on biweekly check totals.
  • St. Louis Circuit Attorney: Departments marked with an asterisk (*) have a different funding source.
  • St. Louis city: Salaries are estimates based on biweekly check totals.
  • St. Louis Collector of Revenue: Department not provided.
  • St. Louis Medical Examiner: Department, full-time/part-time status not provided.
  • St. Louis Public Administration: Department not provided.
  • St. Louis Recorder of Deeds: Department, full-time/part-time status not provided.
  • St. Louis Sheriff: Department not provided.
  • St. Louis Treasurer: Department not provided. Salaries are estimates based on biweekly check totals.
  • St. Peters: Full-time/part-time status not provided.
  • Webster Groves: Full-time/part-time status not provided.
  • Wildwood: Hire dates not provided.

Universities

  • Missouri University of Science and Technology: Full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.
  • University of Missouri-Columbia: Full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.
  • University of Missouri-Kansas City: Full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.
  • University of Missouri-St. Louis: Full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.

School districts

  • Brentwood School District: Salaries are annualized estimates provided by the district. Salaries reflect totals for all combined job duties.
  • Clayton School District: Full-time/part-time status not provided.
  • Dunklin School District: Department, full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided. Salaries reflect totals for all combined job duties.
  • Elsberry School District: Department, full-time/part-time status not provided.
  • Fort Zumwalt School District: Department, full-time/part-time status not provided.
  • Fox School District: Department not provided.
  • Francis Howell School District: Full-time/part-time status not provided. Totals are gross school year 2020-2021.
  • Franklin County School District: Department not provided.
  • Grandview School District: Salaries reflect totals for all combined job duties.
  • Hazelwood School District: Hire dates not provided. Salaries shown are annual estimates based on biweekly check totals. Salaries reflect totals for all combined job duties.
  • Hillsboro School District: Department, full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.
  • Jefferson School District: Salaries reflect totals for all combined job duties.
  • Jennings School District: Full-time, part-time status not provided. Hire dates not provided.
  • Ladue School District: Hire dates not provided.
  • Lindbergh School District: Full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.
  • Lonedell School District: Department, full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.
  • Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District: Department not provided.
  • Meramec Valley School District: Department not provided.
  • New Haven School District: Full-time/part-time status not provided. Salaries shown are annual estimates based on monthly pay.
  • Normandy Schools Collaborative: Salaries reflect totals for all combined job duties.
  • Northwest School District: Department, full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.
  • Orchard Farm School District: Department, full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.
  • Parkway School District: Full-time, part-time status not provided. Salaries reflect totals for all combined job duties.
  • Pattonville School District: Department, full-time/part-time status, hire date not provided.
  • Riverview Gardens School District: Hire date not provided.
  • Rockwood School District: Department not provided.
  • Silex School District: Department not provided.
  • Spring Bluff School District: Department not provided.
  • St. Charles School District: Department, hire dates not provided.
  • St. Clair School District: Department, hire dates not provided.
  • St. Louis Public Schools: Department not provided.
  • Strain-Japan School District: Department not provided.
  • Union School District: Salaries reflect totals for all combined job duties.
  • University City School District: Department not provided.
  • Valley Park School District: Department not provided.
  • Warren County School District: Salaries shown are totals through April 15, 2021.
  • Washington School District: Totals are gross school year 2020-2021.
  • Webster Groves School District: Department not provided.
  • Windsor School District: Department not provided.
  • Winfield School District: Department not provided. Salaries reflect totals for all combined job duties.

Museums and libraries

  • Missouri Botanical Garden: Department, full-time/part-time status not provided.

Regional and development

  • St. Louis Economic Development Partnership: Department not provided.

Former contributors

Former Post-Dispatch reporter Walker Moskop and developer Andrew Nguyen helped build earlier versions of this app.