The city of Burlington currently employs 48 people whose annual salaries top $100,000. Yet, these six-figure earners, who comprise about 4.3 percent of Burlington’s 1,125-person workforce, are just a partial count of the city’s staff members who pull in more than a hundred grand a year.
Another 16 individuals who work for the city also pass the $100,000 mark when other taxable forms of remuneration, such as overtime and longevity pay, are factored into their salaries. Meanwhile, non-taxable benefits, like healthcare and retirement contributions, leave an untold number of others on Burlington’s payroll with total compensation packages that exceed $100,000.
This overview of Burlington’s top earners is ultimately derived from a somewhat spotty trove of personnel data that the city has submitted in response to a public records request from The Alamance News.
The newspaper has also sent, or is in the process of sending, similar requests to each of the county’s other municipalities as well as Alamance County’s government and the Alamance-Burlington school system. In each case, The Alamance News has asked the local government to provide personnel information that it is obligated to release under North Carolina’s Public Records Law.
Among the items that the newspaper specifically sought are the full name, date of hire, and current assignment or job title for everyone on the local government’s payroll. The Alamance News has also requested each employee’s annual salary as of February 1, 2025 along with their total compensation from 2024. The newspaper explicitly stated that the latter figure should include the employee’s base pay “plus any amounts paid for additional duties, bonuses, overtime, longevity pay, any healthcare or and/or dental premiums paid on behalf of the employee or his/her family, as well as employer contributions into any retirement programs (including any 401k programs).”
Last month, Alamance County’s manager Heidi York passed along a response to the newspaper’s request that actually exceeded the newspaper’s criteria for total compensation. York also supplied the newspaper with a full inventory of this figure’s contents – which included various income tax withholdings that the newspaper hadn’t mentioned as well as odds and ends such as uniform allowances and K-9 stipends for sheriff’s deputies.
The information that York forwarded to the newspaper went on to appear in the last three weekly editions of The Alamance News. The newspaper will now continue its series on local government salaries with payroll data for the city of Burlington – with the first installment appearing in this week’s edition.
For those who may be keeping score, the information which the newspaper received from the city of Burlington shows more six-figure salaries than had appeared in the county’s payroll disclosures. In fact, a head-to-head comparison of base salaries reveals that 48 people on Burlington’s payroll make at least $100,000 a year, as compared to the 34 county staff members who appear in the same bracket. This discrepancy becomes even more marked given that Alamance County employs 1,675 full-time, part-time, and seasonal employees – versus the 1,125 individuals who work for the city on either a full-time, a part-time, or a seasonal basis.
The numbers which Burlington sent to the newspaper make it all but impossible to continue the comparison into other forms of staff compensation.
Unlike Alamance County, the city of Burlington did not provide the newspaper with a single figure that encompassed all of the compensation data that it had sought for each employee. Instead, the city supplied something it dubbed “employee gross” – whose contents it initially neglected to spell out for the newspaper’s benefit.
In a subsequent interview, Peggy Reece, the city’s finance director, explained that the “employee gross” figure equates to the “gross wages’ line on an employee’s W2 form. In addition to each staff member’s base salary, this figure contains other taxable remuneration such as overtime pay and the longevity bonuses which the city pays out to employees with five years of service or more.
According to Morgan Lasater, the city’s community engagement director, an employee of five year’s standing will receive a longevity bonus equal to one percent of their annual salary. This figure increases another percentage point for each additional five years, until it caps out at 5 percent after 25 years – with a maximum possible bonus of $3,500 during any single calendar year.
Lasater noted that the “employee gross” number also contains the temporary bonuses that the city extends to expectant retirees who notify the city about their departures at least six months in advance. As a gesture of appreciation to these outgoing staff member, the city tacks another 5 percent onto their salaries for the duration of their final six months on the job.
Lasater conceded that the “employee gross” figure omits various forms of non-taxable compensation that many city staff members also receive. These items include the $10,205 a year which the city sets aside to cover medical and dental care for each employee who takes advantage of the city’s health plan. It also encompasses the 7.65 percent that’s deducted from each employee’s salary under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA; the city’s retirement contribution, which amounts to “.1608 over base” for each employee; and the 5 percent it automatically invests into a 401k account on behalf of every full-time employee.
Reece said that a staff member’s gross taxable pay can also be offset by Burlington’s “beneflex” program. The city’s finance director added that this initiative allows staff members to set money aside from their pre-tax earnings to pay for medical procedures or childcare.
“If someone knows that they have a procedure coming up and it’s going to cost them $1,000,” she went on to explain, “they can put up to $1,000 into a flexible spending account, and they can use it like a debit card.”
In any event, these sundry non-taxable extras can result in “employee gross” wages that are substantially lower than an employee’s base salary. Other employees have gross wages that significantly exceed their base pay. This is particularly true for many high-ranking police officers – 29 of whom have “gross” wages in excess of $100,000 although only 13 of these qualify for the six-figure club based on their base salaries alone.
Aside from these police officers and a smattering of higher-ranking firefighters, city department heads comprise the vast majority of those whose base salaries exceed $100,000. A ranked list of these 48 staff members appears at the end of this story – followed by the first installment of an alphabetical roster of all city staff members paired with their salaries.
This full list of salaries includes 471 people whose base pay is given as “$0.00.” This cipher presumably indicates the staff member’s part-time, temporary, or seasonal status. Another 654 employees, who apparently work full time for the city, are listed alongside their current base salaries and – usually – their adjusted “gross” wages as well. The “employee gross” line, which reflects earnings from 2024, is nevertheless left blank for people who joined Burlington’s city staff since January 1, 2025.
The first sections, with salaries of employees in alphabetical order A through F, are listed HERE and HERE.
