Psychiatrist tops list of highest-paid Ohio employees

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If you want to make the big bucks working for Ohio’s state government go into medicine.

Sixty of the state's 51,806 employees took home more than $200,000 in annual gross pay in 2015, according to this newspaper's analysis of a state payroll database released Friday.

All but two of those big-earners had medical jobs: psychiatrists, physician administrators and physician specialists, mostly working for the state’s mental health and addiction services department.

Others work for the departments of rehabilitation and corrections, developmental disabilities and youth services.

Forty-three of those 60 top-paid employees were white, six were black and 11 were Asian. Forty of them — two-thirds — were men.

The only two employees making more than $200,000 who were in non-medical jobs were Richard Ross and C. Bruce Dunn.

Ross, the only department director in the group, left his job as director of the education department on Jan. 1. Last year he was paid $200,842. Dunn, chief investment officer for the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, was paid $205,185.

The person with the highest hourly rate in the $200K club was Andrew Eddy, a physician administrator in the rehabilitation and corrections department who was paid $142.48 per hour. His annual pay totaled $298,755 and included no overtime.

The highest total pay for a state government employee last year went to psychiatrist Zinovi Goubar, once again putting a state psychiatrist at the top of the payroll heap. Goubar, who works at Northcoast Behavioral Healthcare in Northfield, has been the top-paid state employee in previous years as well.

Goubar, who works for the mental health and addiction services department (MHAS), grossed nearly $456,243 in 2015, with overtime pay accounting for $286,613.

The total wages of just more than half of those making more than $200,000 included overtime pay, but Eric Wandersleben, spokesman for MHAS, said “overtime” for psychiatrists, physician specialists and physician assistants is not paid at time-and-a-half

He said the state’s contract with the Service Employees International Union requires that those workers be paid $65 an hour for nights, weekends and holidays when they serve as medical officer on duty, an amount that “is lower in most cases than the employees’ regular hourly pay.”

Using private-pay physicians to staff those extra hours at the state’s six regional psychiatric hospitals would cost $125 per hour or more, said Wandersleben.

“With a nationwide shortage of psychiatrists, public and private psychiatric facilities are challenged to maintain staffing levels needed to provide safe, quality treatment,” said Wandersleben. “We have implemented a robust recruitment program dedicated to attracting and retaining well-qualified psychiatrists.”

Among the state’s elected officials, the highest-paid is Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor , whose $159,948 in annual pay ranks 137th.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich ranks 174th with an annual salary of $148,316. The auditor, treasurer, attorney general and secretary of state all rank 1,179th because they are paid the same: $109,565 annually.

Overall, the state’s 51,806 employees were paid $3.01 billion, a 1.76 percent increase over 2014. State employees received a 2.5 percent wage increase on July 1.

The state paid $112.4 million in overtime last year, a 1 percent decline from 2014.

The gross average wage of an Ohio employee last year was $51,270, up from $49,890 in 2014.

The total number of state employees remained flat compared to 2014. That year, Ohio’s 51,792 employees were paid $2.96 billion.

The Columbus Dispatch reported Friday that the overtime pay was up last year for Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers protecting Kasich, who is running for president and frequently travels out of state.

Tom Hoyt, spokesman for the department of administrative services, confirmed that $183,600 in overtime was paid to nine Ohio state troopers who are assigned to Kasich’s executive protection unit. That is a 64 percent increase over 2014. When the first three months of 2016 are included, the total overtime paid to troopers providing security to Kasich is $222,000, Hoyt confirmed.

Additional information about the governor’s security detail was not available from the patrol.

“To ensure safety and security we do not discuss any of the resources or personnel used as part of the executive security detail,” said Lt. Craig Cvetan, public affairs commander for the patrol.

TOP 20 STATE OF OHIO EMPLOYEES IN GROSS PAY, 2015