Who Were 2024's Highest Earners In Massachusetts?

MASSACHUSETTS - The number always looks staggering. This year it's $10,263,294,544.53. That's the total state payroll for Massachusetts. From UMass athletics to the hospital systems and the State Police, there are hundreds of thousands of names on that big list.

The top five highest earning individuals on the state payroll are:

1. Frank Martin ($1,825,072.41), head coach of the UMass Amherst men's basketball team.
2. Michael Collins ($1,598,902.84), the chancellor at the UMass Chan Medical School.
3. Terence Flotte ($1,149,742.84), the executive deputy chancellor at the UMass Chan Medical School.
4. Donald Brown ($950,443.54), the former head coach of the UMass Amherst football team.
5. Partha Chakrabarti ($868,296.82), executive vice chancellor at the UMass Chan Medical School.

The largest portion of the total payroll belongs to the UMass education system. About 17%, roughly $1.76 billion, goes into it. The MBTA ranked second, the Trial Court third and the State Police fourth.

Overall, the total payroll rose from $9.3 billion in 2023 to $10.2 billion this year. The last time the state payroll decreased on a year-by-year basis was from 2015 to 2016. In '15, the total pay was $6.89 billion. The following year it was $6.85 billion.

Brown, the only former employee in the top five highest earners, was fired in Nov. 2024 after nearly three seasons. The coach of the Minutemen racked up a 6-28 record over the years, with only two wins coming from FBS opponents. UMass reportedly owed Brown a buyout of $1.4 million.

While the MBTA and the State Police are the next highest-earning institutions after UMass, the academic giant occupied the first 13 spots on the list of over 100,000 employees.

Thomas McCarthy, a detective with the State Police, earned $584,072. Over 50% of that ($349,815.27) was overtime pay.

At spot 20 was Phillip Eng, the highest-earning state employee not from UMass. The general manager of the MBTA earned $546,683.74.

Parse through the data at the Massachusetts Comptroller's page linked here.