SIUE administrators make highest salaries out of 20,500 records collected in 2017

The BND’s Public Pay Database collected more than 20,500 salary records from 83 taxing bodies in 2017. They included 28 schools, 22 cities, 19 townships, six counties, six villages and two counties.

All of the records, including those from past years, can be found at bnd.com/publicpay.

Salary amounts from the 20,500 records added up to nearly $743 million, although the records the BND received were not uniform, so some may include items like vacation pay or retirement, others do not.

Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville faculty made the most amount of money, occupying 68 out of the highest 100 paid positions.

The top four highest paid people were:

▪  SIUE: Stephen Hansen, Office of the Chancellor, $325,247.66

▪  SIUE: Bruce Rotter, School of Dental Medicine, $273,636.48

▪  SIUE: Eric Langenwalter, School of Dental Medicine, $213,804.48

▪  SIUE: Janice Joplin, School of Business Administration, $176,358.72

The top 15 non-SIUE employees included state’s attorneys, school superintendents and faculty at Southwestern Illinois College:

▪  Southwestern Illinois College: Georgia Costello, president, $176,098.74

▪  O’Fallon High Dist. 203: Darcy Benway, superintendent, $191,515.60

▪  Randolph County: Jeremy Walker, state’s attorney, $186,472.21

▪  Belleville School Dist. 118: Matthew Klosterman, superintendent, $185,065.58

▪  Southwestern Illinois College: Dennis Shannon, faculty, $184,721.20

▪  Belleville High Dist. 201: Jeffrey Dosier, superintendent, $177,665.76

▪  Carlyle District 1: Joe Novsek, superintendent, $177,287.22

▪  Southwestern Illinois College: Clay Baitman, vice president of instruction, $175,913.11

▪  City of Waterloo: James Trantham, retired police chief, $175,019.84 (amount includes paid vacation time, among other things)

▪  Mascoutah CUSD 19: Craig Fiegel, superintendent, $172,315.00

▪  Madison County: Thomas Gibbons, state’s attorney, $166,524.80

▪  Clinton County: John Hudspeth, state’s attorney, $166,507.90

▪  St. Clair County: Brendan Kelly, state’s attorney, $164,502.00

▪  Triad CUSD 2: Leigh Lewis, superintendent, $161,627.97

▪  Highland SD 5: Michael Sutton, superintendent, $157,735.52

The BND database contains more than 140,000 public salary records since 2011. The data is gathered through Freedom of Information Act requests.

The database gives basic compensation information and does not typically include retirement or insurance benefits, though some records may. In addition, some government bodies operate on a fiscal year, while others operate on a calendar year, so comparisons are not always the same for the exact same time period.

Also, not everyone’s salaries may be paid by their employer. Some people may be paid through grants or state or federal government.

This story was originally published November 27, 2017 at 7:00 AM with the headline "SIUE administrators make highest salaries out of 20,500 records collected in 2017."