It's good to be the mayor, but it pays to be a firefighter.

A fire official again topped the list of San Francisco's highest paid city employees last year, and the department had six of the city's top 10 spots for total pay, according to figures for fiscal 2012-13 from the city's Department of Human Resources.

Mayor Ed Lee may get the august, wood-paneled office in City Hall's Room 200 and a Chevy Volt chauffeured by a security detail, but 48 city employees took home more pay than Lee's $270,910 in fiscal 2012-13, the figures show.

Some of those are well-salaried department heads who don't make overtime and have some relatively modest additional pay packages, like Police Chief Greg Suhr, who totaled $324,749, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White at $320,816 and San Francisco International Airport Director John Martin with $301,499.

Most of the top earners last year, though, got there through overtime or massive payouts of accrued time off upon retirement, with much of that going to fire and police brass, the figures show.

When they were facing large deficits a few years ago during the recession, city officials pushed to reduce overtime, including OT for police officers, Muni workers and sheriff's deputies. There have been reductions, but not across the board, Deputy City Controller Monique Zmuda said.

"The overtime has come down from the peak, which was five years ago," Zmuda said. A lot of progress was made at the Police Department, but not as much in other areas, she said.

31 of the top 50 earners

One area where overtime has surged - by design - is the Fire Department, with top brass and front-line firefighters making up 31 of the top 50 city earners in the last fiscal year, figures show.

At the top of the list was Battalion Chief James Vannucchi, who retired during the fiscal year, which ended June 30, and took home a whopping $393,430.

Vannucchi more than doubled his base salary of about $158,000 by pulling in almost $52,000 in overtime and more than $183,000 in other compensation, including payouts for accrued vacation, unused sick time and other earned time off, the figures show.

Many of the top earners, including at least four of the top 10, found themselves in that spot thanks to generous payouts upon retirement.

"It's a double-edged sword when you pay people for their unused sick days," said Tom O'Connor, president of Firefighters Union Local 798. "Think of how much money Jim saved them over the course of 30 years by not calling in sick. ... It's a smart fiscal policy, but it looks bad when they pay out at the end of the year." Vannucchi took an average of 2.2 sick days per year in his final 76 months on the job, according to Fire Department figures.

That will likely change soon. The union is negotiating its next contract, and the firefighters are seeking a raise in exchange for dropping compensation for unpaid sick time, O'Connor said.

"This practice of getting paid for unused sick days will end in the near future," he said.

The other driving factor is overtime, particularly within the Fire Department, which mandates a certain number of firefighters work overtime to fill shifts.

Relying on overtime, rather than filling vacant positions, is more cost effective because it eliminates the additional cost of providing health care, retirement and other benefits to new firefighters, who in the first year work extensive paid training days, Zmuda said.

A toll on the force

But it takes a toll on the existing force.

"Operationally, we've suffered a bit," Hayes-White said. The city is now aggressively trying to ramp up firefighter hiring, including a new recruit class of 43 sworn in last week. Another class is set for January, with three more over the next three years.

Five of the top six earners in city government in terms of overtime last year were in the Fire Department, figures show.

Fire Lt. Gary Altenberg of Station 39 on Portola Avenue had the most overtime of any city employee, pulling in $191,172 in overtime, well above his salary of $131,101. With other pay perks, his total compensation was $343,730. Not far behind was firefighter and paramedic Frederick Binkley, who racked up $179,235 in overtime on top of a base pay of $129,141, the figures show. Binkley's total pay last year was $326,140.

Massive overtime isn't confined to the Fire Department.

Sheriff's Deputy Whitney Yee was the fourth highest overtime earner last year, raking in $156,843 in extra-hours pay. That amount was almost double his base salary of $90,545.

Topped sheriff's salary

Yee earned a total of $264,163 last year and made more in overtime than his boss' salary.

Elected Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi had a salary of $138,668. He also got another almost $128,000, which was primarily back pay after Lee suspended him for almost seven months in an unsuccessful effort to remove the sheriff over a domestic dispute with his wife.

The top earner in other compensation besides salary or overtime was John Goldberg, a captain who retired from the police force in June 2012 and later was hired by the Department of Public Works as a manager on police facility construction projects.

Goldberg secured almost $240,000 in payouts from 1,040 hours of unused sick time, 1,300 hours of comp time and 400 hours of unused vacation time, according to city figures.

He earned $34,583 in base pay during fiscal 2012-13.

As for the $100,000 club, well, let's just say it ain't what it used to be.

No less than 10,281 of the city's roughly 28,000 employees earned at least $100,000 in total compensation in the last fiscal year. Eighty-four pulled in at least $250,000 each in total compensation, the figures show.