Clackamas County spent just over $196.6 million paying their employees in the 2023 calendar year, up about 3% from the previous year.

Department heads, medical directors, physicians and law enforcement officers were among the county’s highest earners last year, according to county employee pay data.

The medical director of Clackamas County Health Centers, Dr. Andrew Suchocki, was the county’s top-paid employee once again, earning $307,150 last year. Dr. Sarah Present, who directs the public health division, was the second highest earner with gross pay of $287,131.

Other top-paid employees last year include the county’s administrator, Gary Schmidt, who was the third highest earner with a gross income of $276,257. The next highest paid employees were the county’s legal counsel, Stephen Madkour, and Dr. Lisa Sullivan, the county’s pediatric medical director, whose gross wages came out to $270,232 and $268,204, respectively.

Of the 2,510 full-time, part-time and intermittent employees last year, 24 had annual earnings that exceeded $200,000. For most of these top-paid employees, the bulk of their earnings came from regular salaries.

But Sgt. Jeffrey Juker, the top earner from the Sheriff’s Office, made that list after more than doubling his base pay of $115,562 by working extra hours. His overtime paycheck of $119,091, and premium pay of $8,464 bumped his gross income to just over $243,000 last year. That’s more than the $214,360 that his boss, Sheriff Angela Brandenburg, earned last year.

Clackamas County spent about $8.7 million on overtime last year, roughly the same amount as the previous year, according to an analysis of employee payroll data. Similarly, most of last year’s overtime bill came from the Sheriff’s Office, which spent roughly $6.3 million on employees who worked extra hours, in line with the previous year’s spending.

The wage data shows that Sheriff’s Office employees made up the bulk of all county employees who earned six figures last year. That trend is also seen in Multnomah and Washington counties, where deputy sheriffs, sergeants and jailers were also among the highest paid workers last year.

Other top earners from the sheriff’s office last year were Undersheriff Jenna Morrison and Jail Lt. Barbara McCullough-Dewhurst, who made $228,929 and $215,518, respectively.

Countywide, some 2,133 employees had full-time status and average pay of about $86,830. That’s roughly 11% higher than the previous year’s average full-time pay among the county’s 2,233 full-time workers.

The county said it applied a 4.5% cost of living adjustment to employees’ wages for the 2023-24 fiscal year to account for inflation.

-- Kristine de Leon covers the retail industry, small business and data enterprise stories. Reach her at kdeleon@oregonian.com.

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