Note: Some figures in this story were updated at 4 p.m. Sept. 20 with the addition of new records to the database.
Among workers in the nearly 110 agencies, departments, schools and other entities receiving or created by taxpayer money in South Carolina, more than 21,000 make $50,000 or more in base salary.
You can look up any of those salaries, current as of Sept. 1 in most cases, in our State Salary Database.
Through state transparency efforts and Freedom of Information Act requests, The State newspaper collects and publishes the data on our Web site. Click here to browse the database.
Some highlights:
• The combined total of 21,387 salaries in the database is $1,638,028,339.
• The top five salaries (not including bonuses and non-taxpayer elements to salaries): W. Stuart Smith, vice president and executive director of the Medical University Hospital Authority ($453,407), Santee Cooper President and CEO Lonnie Carter ($416,899), MUSC instructor Lisa Montgomery ($405,313), USC professor Jay Moskowitz ($402,999) and University of Charleston basketball coach Frederick “Doug” Wojcik ($400,000)..
• The top agencies by number of employees making $50,000 or greater: USC (3,028), Medical University Hospital Authority (2,707), Clemson University (1,873), MUSC (1,455), Santee Cooper (1,199) and the Department of Transportation (922).
• The number of employees in the database making $100,000 or more: 3,080.
Kelly Davis
