Top Town Earners in Danvers for 2012

This is the first part in a series looking at town employee salaries in 2012. Stay tuned later this week for a breakdown of police and firefighters salaries and School Department employees.

Danvers Town Manager Wayne Marquis again topped the list of highest-paid town employees last year, according to town records. And he is one of the highest paid municipal leaders on the North Shore.

Marquis earned $188,441 in 2012. Under a new five-year contract he and the Board of Selectmen signed last year, Marquis' compensation was simplified to just his salary with an 8 percent annual contribution to his retirement plan and a $9,000 car allowance rolled into that amount.

The changes were made to allow all of Marquis' compensation to count toward his public pension -- recent changes in state pension law made car allowances ineligible. The town is also no longer paying $1,200 a year for a disability income insurance policy.

Marquis will receive 2.5 percent pay raises based on a yearly performance reviews throughout the duration of the contract. The old contract, which was due to expire June 30, 2013, allowed for 3 percent raises.

In 2011, he earned $184,432 and received a 2 percent raise last year. The terms of Marquis' old contract were incorporated into the new deal, which now expires June 30, 2017.

Marquis continues to far surpass the earnings of fellow city and town CEOs on the North Shore, ranging anywhere from $40,000-$100,000 more in salary, although he has been Danvers' Town Manager since 1979.

Both Marquis and selectmen say a fairer comparison is to contrast his salary with that of town managers across Massachusetts in similar size communities.

As contracted employees, managers often have greater unilateral executive authority to run their respective towns and act as the chief financial officer as well, unlike mayors and town administrators. About 50 towns across the state use a manager system.

Under that light, the differences in pay aren’t so drastic. Marquis isn’t at the top of the pay scale, but he isn’t near the bottom either.

In regard to other town employees in Danvers, the majority of those who earned $100,000 or more in 2012 were police officers. That group of 65 employees also includes town department heads, senior light plant workers and managers, firefighters, school administrators and a few teachers.

Some notable names there are Schools Superintendent Lisa Dana, Assistant Superintendent/High School Principal Susan Ambrozavitch, Police Chief Neil Ouellette, Student Services Director Mary Tatem, Public Works Director David Lane, Fire Chief Kevin Farrell, Danvers Electric Director Coleen O'Brien, Town Accountant Leonard Marshall, Assistant High School Principal Mark Strout, former Holten-Richmond Middle School Principal Michael Cali and Assistant Town Manager Diane Norris.

No. 65 is high school teacher and longtime baseball coach Roger Day, who earned $100,795 last year.

The following chart shows the top 25 earners: