Not sure what "total pay and benefits" means or why someone's number looks so high? This plain-language guide explains every field in the Transparent Nevada salary database.
You found a name in the Transparent Nevada database. Maybe it is someone you know, a local official you voted on, or a position you are considering applying for. And now you are staring at a number that does not quite make sense.
Why is the total so much higher than the base salary? What counts as "other pay"? Does this include the pension too?
This post explains every field in the database in plain language so you can read any record with confidence.
Regular Pay
This is the employee's base salary or hourly wages for standard hours worked. For most employees, this is the number closest to what you would think of as their annual salary. It does not include overtime, bonuses, or any additional compensation.
Other Pay
This catch-all category includes any compensation beyond regular wages. It commonly includes overtime pay, which can be substantial for first responders and public safety employees who frequently work extra shifts. It also includes one-time payouts such as unused vacation or sick leave cashed out at retirement, performance bonuses, stipends, and any other supplemental payments the agency made during the year.
This is often the field that makes a total look unexpectedly high. A firefighter with a $75,000 base salary who worked significant overtime and cashed out accumulated leave in their final year might show a total regular plus other pay figure well above $100,000. Neither number is wrong. They are measuring different things.
Total Benefits
This is what the employer (meaning the government agency, funded by taxpayers) paid on the employee's behalf in benefits. It typically includes the employer's contribution to health insurance premiums, dental and vision coverage, life insurance, and most significantly, the employer's contribution to the employee's pension.
Pension contributions can be a large number. For Nevada public employees covered by PERS (the Public Employees' Retirement System), the employer contribution rate is set by the state and has historically been among the highest in the country. A six-figure salary employee might have $30,000 to $50,000 or more in annual employer pension contributions added to their total benefits figure.
Total Pay and Benefits
This is the sum of regular pay, other pay, and total benefits. It represents the full cost to taxpayers of employing that person for the year. It is the most complete measure of what a position actually costs, though it is also the largest number and the one most likely to surprise people who are only thinking about take-home pay.
If you search for someone who has been employed by a Nevada government agency for many years, you may see multiple records across different years. The database stores annual records, not cumulative totals. Each row represents one employee at one agency in one year.
You might also see the same person appear in both the salary database and the pension database if they are retired and collecting a pension while previously appearing in salary records during their working years. These are two separate datasets and the numbers are not additive in any simple way.
Here is how to read a hypothetical record:
Name: Jane Smith Agency: Clark County School District Job Title: Principal Regular Pay: $112,000 Other Pay: $8,400 Total Benefits: $41,200 Total Pay and Benefits: $161,600
In plain language: Jane earned $112,000 in base salary, received about $8,400 in additional compensation (possibly a small stipend for an extra duty assignment and a payout of unused sick days), and the school district paid roughly $41,200 in benefits on her behalf, the largest portion of which went toward her pension. The $161,600 total is what it cost Clark County taxpayers to employ Jane that year.
Her take-home pay after taxes and her own benefit contributions would be considerably lower than any of these numbers.
Transparent Nevada publishes the compensation data that agencies report in their official payroll disclosures. It does not include personal benefits like an employee's own pension contributions, their income taxes, or any deductions from their paycheck. The records reflect employer-reported figures, not employee net income.
If a field shows zero or is blank for a particular record, it typically means the agency did not report that category separately, not that the employee received no compensation in that area.
Before drawing conclusions from a number that looks unusually high or low, consider:
Is this the employee's last year before retirement? Accumulated leave payouts often spike total compensation in final-year records.
Does this agency rely heavily on overtime? Police, fire, and corrections departments routinely show high "other pay" figures because of mandatory overtime and shift coverage requirements.
Is this a part-year record? Some employees appear mid-year after a hire or before a departure, so their annual total reflects only the months they worked.
The data is accurate. Context makes it meaningful.
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