Of 61 City Employees Paid Six-Figure Salaries, Only One is a Woman

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NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—According to the results of a public records request filed by New Brunswick Today, more than sixty city employees draw salaries in excess of $100,000.

And only one of them, New Brunswick police Sgt. Ann Chapman-Scattergood ($111,218), is a woman.

High atop the list is the city’s embattled Business Administrator, Thomas Loughlin III, the man who was in charge of the New Brunswick Water Utility during a botched attempt to coverup problems with water quality.

In a “temporary” appointment that lasted more than five years, Loughlin assumed control of the utility in 2007, after its previous director, Shawn Maloney, took his own life amid a federal investigation.

Part of Loughlin’s $174,654 salary includes an extra $15,000 raise he was given for managing the utility, even though he was replaced in 2012 by someone who would later alert the NJ Department of Environmental Protection of the coverup.

“My salary has not been reduced since stepping down as Acting Water Director,” Loughlin wrote in a memo to New Brunswick Today on December 18.

The only other city employee who draws a salary greater than $150,000 is Fire Director Robert C. Rawls, one of the few non-white personnel to make it onto the six-figure salary list.  His four deputy fire chiefs, all of them white men, make $135,928 annual salaries.

Rawls has been with the Fire Department since 1986 and also serves as the city’s Emergency Management Coordinator.  He is the only person of color in Mayor James Cahill’s all-male cabinet.

Most of the city employees who made the list work in either the Police or Fire Departments.  In total, 30 police employees and 20 fire employees make six-figure salaries.

Eight fire lieutenants make $106,025 per year, and seven fire captains make $120,412 per year, while some twenty police sergeants earn annual salaries of $111,218 each.

Police Director Anthony Caputo’s current salary is $124,848, only the tenth-highest in the police department, lower than his three police captains  ($141,662) and six lieutenants ($125,511).

Caputo, who retired in 2009 before returning to the same job less than two years later, is simulateously collecting an annual pension of $115,019 for his 26 years of policework.  According to personnel records, Caputo took  a month’s worth of days off last year, using 22 vacation days, five personal days, and three sick days.

Also making the six-figure list were several other heads of city departments including the Director of Public Works Steven Zarecki ($123,570), Planning Director Glenn Patterson ($116,145), Finance Director Doug Petix ($114,568), Social Services Director Dave Blevins ($105,080) and Library Director Robert Belvin ($101,184).

Muncipal Engineer Thomas Guldin ($115,588) was the most recent hire to make $100,000 or more.  He was officially hired on March 23, 2009.

Other officials with six-figure salaries include Assistant City Attorney T.K. Shamy ($108,054), City Clerk Daniel Torrisi ($105,301), Data Processing Coordinator Michael Troulis ($103,594), and Construction Code Official William Schrum ($102,774).

*hire date for Anthony Caputo is listed as 7/1/2011, when he came out of retirement.

Charlie Kratovil

Editor at New Brunswick Today
732-993-9697
editor@newbrunswicktoday.com
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Charlie is the founder and editor of New Brunswick Today, and the winner of the Awbrey Award for Community-Oriented Local Journalism. He is a proud Rutgers University journalism graduate, a community organizer, and a former independent candidate for mayor of New Brunswick.