The Dayton Daily News is committed to watching your tax dollars.

Our reporters have been acquiring payroll data for area counties, cities, townships and public colleges and universities for several years now as part of our Payroll Project.

In today’s Morning Briefing, we go in-depth to tell you about our project, how to use our interactive database and some recent interesting findings.

If you have thoughts or feedback on this newsletter or other news tips, please let me know at Greg.Lynch@coxinc.com.

Want to read the digital version of the newspaper? Click here for our daily ePaper.

The newsletter should take about 2 minutes, 10 seconds to read.

***

Public Salaries: Searchable database now available from our Payroll Project

Public employee payroll is the largest part of most government budgets. In addition to our searchable Payroll Project database, our reporters analyze the data to reveal trends and help readers understand context related to our findings.

• What years are in the database? Our database goes back to 2014 and includes hundreds of thousands of records.

• How do I search the database? There are dropdown menus for year, agency and department. There is also an advanced search for typing in a person’s name. Once those are selected, click on search to see the results.

• What is included in “Gross pay”? Gross pay can include overtime, cashed out vacation and sick leave and other forms of compensation.

• Will the database be updated? Yes, we will continue to acquire payroll data for area governments and will update our database.

• Go search for yourself: Click here for our database.

Interesting facts from our most recent stories

• Dayton: Dayton’s highest-paid employee in 2023 was city manager Shelley Dickstein. Find out how much she made here.

• Dayton mayor: The salary for Dayton’s mayor jumped by 53% last year. Find out why.

• Montgomery County: Montgomery County’s highest-paid workers came mostly from the coroner’s office.

• State of Ohio: The state of Ohio paid its employees $3.9 billion in 2023. Find out which five made over $400,000 here.

• RTA: 16 RTA bus drivers earned over $100K last year.

Other areas

• Vandalia: Police officers in Vandalia can boost their base pay by tens of thousands of dollars with overtime — and can get a couple more thousand by working the air show.

• Kettering; Close to 75% of Kettering employees who made over $100,000 were part of the fire or police division.

• Beavercreek: The highest-paid employee in Beavercreek in 2023 was also the highest-paid in 2022.

• Springfield: The city of Springfield nearly doubled six-figure earners in 2023.

• Greene County: The Greene County sheriff’s department accounted for 20 six-figure salaries, more than any other department.