How Much Employees In The Union Sanitary District Earn

The Union Sanitary District has the 25th highest average employee salary among the 1,504 special districts listed in a new public pay study.

The state Controller's Office has put the 2011 salary and benefits information on a website. It details city, county and special district payrolls.

The average salary for special districts across California was $54,468 a year. The annual salary in the Union Sanitary District was $89,110.

Here's an overview of some of those numbers.

Here's the top 10 wage earners in the Union Sanitary District for 2011. The employees are listed by position only.

The salaries include regular pay, overtime, lump sums and other payments. The benefits and pension are what the district contributed to the employee's plan.

Rich Currie, the district's general manager, said a lot of the agency's employees do specialized work and operate equipment such as pumps and centrifuges.

The district has to compete with more than 30 sanitation districts in the Bay Area alone for qualified employees.

"It's expensive to live here and we have specialized work that involves engineers, mechanics and treatment plant operators," said Currie.

The district maintains 780 miles of pipe. It serves 100,000 customers and takes in 250 million gallons of sewage a day.

If someone does something wrong, water somewhere gets polluted.