2024 TOP SALARIES

The 2024 compensation for the Top 20 highest paid employees in each of the counties and municipalities in these lists include both law enforcement and firefighting as well as employees involved in maintenance of municipal functions.

These numbers reflect what compensation went to the employee for 2024, not a base salary for the employee. The 2024 compensation numbers include all money that was paid to that employee, whether for regular time, overtime or funds to cover participation in special activities.

Law enforcement and firefighting employees have contractual agreements with the counties, cities or towns in which they work. Those contractual agreements for law enforcement may include pay allowances for a variety of job performance duties, skills, and responsibilities that define and specify police officer compensation to operate the agency within a 21st Century policing model to enhance public safety.

The specialty pay may include clothing allowance, holiday pay, shift differential, K9, SWAT, and or Field Training Officer. Outside of a police officers’ regular duty assignment there will be overtime compensation for training on off days, special events coverage or specially assigned details working outside of the baseline duty including emergency call-out, SWAT / K9 callout, Detective Call Out, or emergency duty holdover for unforeseen rapidly evolving incidents to ensure public safety and to include court appearances for any legal proceeding. Firefighters also may be called to duty as needs arise when not on regularly assigned hours.

Police officers also may receive specialty pay for duty assignments with the Department of Justice Federal Task Force Program when the agency enters a federal partnership program such as FBI Safe Streets. That may include working as Task Force Officers assigned to FBI, DEA, U. S. Marshals Fugitive Squad, ATF, DHS, and Secret Service duty assignments working strategic complex duty objectives. These irregular hours are paid by the DOJ through the Federal Task Force Program. Some compensation also includes State of Indiana and Federal Traffic safety Programs in which police agencies are participating with the traffic safety programs.

What an officer or firefighter earns one year may not be the same as the next year or the previous year, especially if the law enforcement or firefighting agency carried vacancies throughout the year.

The total compensation paid was obtained from Indiana Gateway, which collects and provides access to information about how taxes and other public dollars are budgeted and spent by Indiana ' s local units of government.

All of this compensation information can be found at https:// gateway. ifionline. org / under Public Employee Compensation.

Indiana Gateway for Government Units is the collection platform for local units of government to submit required data to the State of Indiana, as well as a public access tool for citizens. It represents a unique partnership between the State of Indiana and the Indiana Business Research Center at IU’ s Kelley School of Business, with initial support from the Lilly Endowment and sustainable support from the State of Indiana.

Participating state agencies currently include the Department of Local Government Finance, the State Board of Accounts, the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board and the Indiana Gaming Commission.

12 2025 snapshot | a special publication of the News and Tribune