The top 20 CEOs of public companies in New Jersey were paid more than the overall tax base of 79 New Jersey towns, according to an N.J. Advance Media analysis of salary data, provided by Equilar.

New Jersey has long been a home base to some of the largest corporations in the world, and data show the leaders of 20 of the largest companies were paid a combined $249 million in 2014, up slightly from the previous year.

The data was provided by Equilar, an executive compensation and corporate governance data firm, which tracks compensation information for companies around the globe. Total pay was calculated as the sum of salary, bonus, non-equity incentive plan payouts (performance-based cash bonuses), grant-date value of stock and option awards, and all other compensation which includes things like perks.

The data show that Robert J. Hugin, of Celgene Corp., tops the 2014 list, after making a total of $24.2 million during the company's fiscal year. Based in Summit, the pharmaceutical company has grown precipitously in recent years, largely due to sales of Revlimid, a blood-cancer drug, which produced sales of more than $1 billion in the first quarter of 2015 alone.

Hugin is followed by the leaders of longtime Garden State-based companies Honeywell International, Merck & Co. and Johnson & Johnson.

The sortable list below shows the compensation for all 20 of the top earners for 2013 and 2014, and how their salary changed year-to-year.

Stephen Stirling may be reached at sstirling@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @sstirling. Find him on Facebook.