Proportion of high earners more than some larger jurisdictions
The city of Graham may not have pockets as deep or a staff as numerous as the city of Burlington or Alamance County’s government. But given its comparatively small size, the county seat has a fair number of employees pulling salaries in excess of $100,000 a year.
According to personnel data that The Alamance News has obtained from the city of Graham, the city currently has 16 staff members with six-figure salaries. These top earners, moreover, make up about 6.8 percent of the city’s 234 full-time and part-time employees – a higher proportion than either Burlington or Alamance County have on their comparatively more massive payrolls.
The Alamance News has received details on the compensation of all Graham’s municipal staff members in response to a public records request that it has sent the city’s administrators. The newspaper has also dispatched similar requests to most of Alamance County’s other local governments, which are obligated under North Carolina’s Public Records Law to release salaries and other basic information about their personnel.
The city of Graham is the fourth local government to have its payroll data appear in The Alamance News since the newspaper began to publish these records on February 20. Previous editions have featured employee salaries for Alamance County, Burlington, and the town of Haw River – with the county and Burlington running in multiple installments due to their relatively large workforces they field.
Among the items that the newspaper specifically sought from all of these local governments 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).”
Each local government that the newspaper has contacted for this information seems to have brought its own, slightly different interpretation to the request for total compensation. The county, for one, provided a single figure that comprised everything the newspaper had sought along with some other, more obscure forms of remuneration and benefits. Meanwhile, the city of Burlington passed along the “gross” income from each employee’s W2 form, which omitted employee healthcare and other nontaxable perks.
Graham, for its part, has provided a veritable buffet of figures that separates out certain details which the newspaper had sought in a more consolidated form. The one item in this numerical banquet that’s consistent across jurisdictions is each staff member’s base salary. This figure appears in its annualized form for Graham’s 144 full-time employees is rendered as an hourly wage for most of its 90 part-timers.
According to the city’s personnel office, there are currently 16 people on Graham’s payroll whose base salaries exceed $100,000 a year. At the top of this roster is Graham’s city manager Megan Garner, who earns an annual salary of $176,563.70, while assistant city manager Aaron Holland is not far behind with a base pay of $162,041.65 a year. A sharp drop off of nearly $30,000 precedes the rest of the city’s six-figure earners, who consist mainly of department heads, along with four police officers with ranks of lieutenant or captain.
These 16 individuals may seem paltry compared to the 34 county employees who make over $100,000 a year or the 48 members of Burlington’s city who boast six-figure salaries. But their 6.8 percent share of Graham’s workforce makes these employees a far bigger bloc than their counterparts in Burlington or Alamance County, who comprise roughly 4.3 and 2.0 percent of their respective organizations.
In addition to each employee’s base salary, Graham’s personnel office has sent The Alamance News a figure that it dubs “total compensation” – which hovers below the base salary for many of the city’s white-collar staff. Lorrie Andrews, Graham’s personnel director, acknowledges that this number is tantamount to the gross income on each employee’s W2 form. It therefore omits nontaxable benefits like health coverage and 401k contributions, but encompasses taxable remuneration such as longevity bonuses and pay for additional duties.
Graham’s personnel office also provided the newspaper with some additional data on these extra-salary forms of compensation.
According to the personnel office, the city sets aside $10,011.60 a year to provide medical and dental coverage for each full-time employee. It is also required by state law to make automatic payments into a 401k for every police officer equal to 5 percent of his or her salary, while it matches the 401k contributions of other full-time employees up to a maximum of 5 percent.
The city also provides veteran staff members with longevity bonuses that are somewhat more generous than those in other jurisdictions. According to the city’s personnel manual, a full-time employee is entitled to an annual payment equal to 1 percent of his or her salary after two years on the job. This bonus jumps to 2.5 percent. after five years, hits 5 percent after 10, and tops off at 6 percent for those who remain with the city for at least 20 years
Unlike the city of Burlington, which caps its longevity bonuses at $3,500 a year, Graham doesn’t place any ceiling on the raw dollars and cents that an employee can receive at the 6-percent level. As a result, some of Graham’s long-serving staff members have accrued considerable longevity payments.
According to the personnel office, the current frontrunner in longevity pay is the city’s utilities director Tonya Mann, whose 24-year tenure and salary of $134,308.48 entitles her to a bonus of $7,763.49 a year. The next highest bonus at $6,948.31 a year is earmarked for Shelby Smith, the city’s deputy utilities director, while Brian Faucette, the head of recreation and parks, can expect to receive an extra $6,056.02 per annum.
The personnel office lists police chief Kristi Baker as the recipient of the next highest bonus, which currently stands at $6,010.04. Meanwhile, inspections director James Lloyd is set to receive $5,974.70 for his years of service and Burke Robertson, the city’s public works director, is due for an extra $5,910.35.
According to the city’s personnel office, the staff members credited with the six highest longevity bonuses have tenures that range from 18 to 29 years and earn annual salaries in excess of $100,000 a year.
A ranked list of all 16 staff members with six-figure salaries appears HERE. The full list of full-time and part-time employees, in alphabetical order, is HERE.
