Who are the highest paid city employees in SLO County?

You might have noticed the cost of living creeping up around SLO County, but have you checked what some of our city employees are earning? A new report from CalCoastNews breaks down the highest-paid public workers across our cities, and the numbers are turning heads. While we're all being asked to vote on a half-cent sales tax hike for transportation this November, raises for administrative and public safety staff are taking a bigger slice of city budgets than ever before.

It's a classic tension: we want good roads and safe streets, but we also want to know where every tax dollar lands. The bulk of city employees are seeing modest increases, but the top earners—often in police and fire departments—are pulling in compensation that might surprise you. As a community, it's worth paying attention to who's being paid what, especially when we're being asked to dig deeper into our own pockets. Check out the full breakdown at CalCoastNews for the names and numbers.