Last month, the Austin American-Statesman launched an interesting new city salary database that shines a light on the “top-paid city of Austin employees of 2025.” The new details are quite interesting, especially given the city’s own recent admission that “Austin is experiencing a housing affordability crisis”—which is, of course, chiefly driven by government action.
Using this tool, it’s obvious that city workers have become numerous and well-compensated. As the Statesman itself notes: “The city of Austin employed 13,567 full-time workers during the 2025 fiscal year…the median regular pay for those employees was $86,711—nearly double the city’s median individual income of about $48,000.” Interestingly, this reported number of full-time workers (13,567) differs somewhat from the audited full-time figure (16,403) noted in the city’s latest Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (see pg. 298), though the difference could be that one relates to the number of positions filled and the other notes the number of positions available.
Whatever the case, the Statesman’s data makes clear that city workers are handsomely paid—although some are clearly better off than others. Consider that the top-paid public employee was the city manager, who brought in a total of $538,608. This was followed by Austin-Bergstrom’s CEO ($478,421), the airport’s chief development officer ($391760), and the deputy city manager ($375,409).
In all, the top 20 highest paid city employees cost Austin-area taxpayers more than $7.1 million.
This new data raises some important questions, like is it appropriate for public servants to make such obscene amounts, especially in the midst of an affordability crisis? And to what degree are these excessively-high salaries indicative of immodesty elsewhere in the budget? And is it time for the Texas Legislature to impose a local spending limit in order to force local governments, like Austin, to rein in expenditures?
What do you think? Is Austin overdoing it? Or are these salaries at the level they should be?