TROY – The city’s highest paid employees in 2017 came from the ranks of the police and fire departments with just two among the top 50 earners employed in other departments.

Firefighters and police officers also accounted for the city’s top 10 overtime earners due largely to mandatory staffing levels in the fire department and incentives for officers assigned to the traffic safety unit.

Retired Fire Capt. Paul Denio earned the highest pay in the city at $175,484, which included the highest amount of overtime and compensatory time at $44,674, according to 2017 city payroll records released to the Times Union through a Freedom of Information request. It was the second year in a row that a retired fire captain was the high paid city employee. In 2016, retired Fire Capt. Michael J. Spinelli was the top earner at $179,627.

Mayor Patrick Madden was the 48th highest paid employee in the city at $95,000. The mayor and Bret Dolan, a water and sewer maintenance supervisor earning $98,813, were the only city employees in the top 50 highest paid from outside the police and fire departments.

Last year 34 city employees earned more than $100,000 in 2017, and 416 city employees earned more than the median city household income of $39,847. The city listed 618 employees on its 2017 payroll.

Under the city’s fire and police contracts, the opportunity for overtime goes to the most senior department members. It’s not unusual for these senior city employees to rack up the largest amounts of overtime as they look toward retirement and seek to increase their final earnings used to calculate pension payments.

The city has seen its overtime costs decrease for the third year in a row, a trend officials expect to accelerate in 2018 as a result of nearly full staffing in the fire and police departments.

Since 2015, the city's overtime costs have dropped 9 percent. The city's 2017 overtime and compensatory payments were $3,207,944 down from $3,314,022 in 2016. In 2015, the overtime payments were $3,566,173.

"It's a product of tighter budgeting," John Salka, said a spokesman for Mayor Patrick Madden, said about the financially challenged city's efforts to curtail expenses.

As the city has dealt with layoffs in 2017 and not filling some vacancies, the two uniformed departments have seen the patrol and firefighting ranks maintained.

“We’re filling vacant positions in both police and fire,” said Salka.

In the police department, three of the five police officers earning more than $30,000 in overtime are assigned to traffic safety. The three officers are Sgt. Salvatore Carello, $40,535; Officer Jeffrey Combs, $35,402; and Officer Ricky Rivet, $30,789.

Assistant Police Chief Daniel DeWolf said overtime for the traffic safety unit is partially compensated by various grants. This unit also is a revenue producer for the city through fines received from tickets written or traffic violations such as speeding.