The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power paid out at least $435 million in pension benefits last year, with an electrical engineer who received $363,000 topping the list, according to data released by a watchdog organization Monday.

Robert Fellner, a research director for the group Transparency California that released the figures, said the numbers give an idea of the size of the costs that go into paying public employee pensions every year.

With the recently approved pay raises for LADWP employees to be doled out over the next five years, he said, “an exceptionally generous — and expensive — retirement plan means that the DWP’s famously above-market salaries end up costing ratepayers twice.”

LADWP officials disputed the idea that retirement costs in the future will continue to be high, saying in a statement that the utility’s “pension system was substantially reformed in 2013 and the changes are estimated to save ratepayers approximately $5 billion over 30 years.”

“New employees hired since January 2014 are part of a pension system with a higher retirement age, reduced retirement formula, increased employee contribution rate, increased time needed to vest, and elimination of the DWP matching employee contributions, as well as suspended reciprocity with the City of Los Angeles,” the utility said in a statement. “This pension reform will save ratepayers as LADWP’s rapidly aging workforce retires and new employees are hired.”

Nearly 25 percent of the workforce is now under this new plan, utility officials said.

Fellner said by phone Monday that while there are less risky approaches to funding pensions, compared to the typical 401K retirement arrangements, such pensions can be “kind of a gamble” since there is a promise by an employer to pay a certain retirement benefit for the rest of the worker’s life.

The data released by Transparent California shows pension dollar figures and other details for more than 7,300 former LADWP employees, and it is the first time such information has been made public, according to Fellner.

“The fact is, I just never thought they’d give it to us,” Fellner said. Transparent California has been requesting the data since 2013, and it was unclear why the LADWP finally decided to release the 2016 pension information this year, he said.

The data gives pension amounts for former employees who retired as far back as 1968 and as recently as last year. The retirees’ pensions averaged about $72,643 annually.

Other benefits, such as healthcare, brought the total post-retirement compensation the LADWP paid out in 2016 to at least $512 million, according to Transparent California’s website data.

The employees on the list represent a wide range of positions at the utility, with employees such as former truck operators, tree trimmer supervisors, storekeepers, steam plant operators and clerk typists receiving pension checks.

Former executives tended to be at the top of the list of pension recipients, and were usually the former general managers and assistant general managers. But less expected was Nevenka Ubavich, an electrical engineering associate whose $363,061 pension payment in 2016 was the highest.

When Ubavich retired in 2015 after 47 years with the utility, her salary was about a third of her pension payment, according to the Transparency California website and LADWP officials.

Ubavich was paid a higher pension than former LADWP General Manager Ronald Deaton, who got $356,806 last year, and retired after about 42 years with the department in 2007.

On Monday, LADWP spokesman Joe Ramallo explained in an email that while Ubavich was making about $120,000 when she left the utility, she “was over 87 years old at retirement and had made contributions to the plan for over 47 years,” he said. “Her pension amount was calculated by annuitizing the balance in her account over her life expectancy,” he said. Annuitizing is to start taking income from an annuity.

“At 87-years-old, her remaining life expectancy is much lower than someone retiring at age 55,” he added. Fellner noted that he was more concerned by the pension liability figure, and the fact that employees in the lower ranks have better compensation than people working similar jobs in Los Angeles in the private sector.

“The fact remains that Los Angeles ratepayers are paying for a retirement plan that is at least 10 times more expensive than what the average private worker can expect to receive,” he said.

But another watchdog disagreed. Fred Pickel, the independent “ratepayer advocate” who monitors the LADWP, said a study that his office did, independently of the LADWP, concluded that the utility’s compensation — including salaries and benefits — is in the middle when compared to other public and investor-owned agencies.

That study was presented to the LADWP’S board of commissioners in January. It compared the utility’s salaries to about 1,400 other utilities, while the pensions were put up against those at 31 similar agencies, Pickel said.