{"id":57288,"date":"2025-08-15T17:20:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T21:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=57288"},"modified":"2025-08-15T17:20:40","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T21:20:40","slug":"top-25-paid-public-employees-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/08\/15\/top-25-paid-public-employees-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 25 paid public employees in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, as of November 2024, had an annual salary of $252,972, putting him fourth on the list.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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  1. Mike Beckham, Lakeland Electric’s general manager: $274,411<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Fred Heid, superintendent of Polk County Public Schools: $271,883 (has since been adjusted to $283,000)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Bill Beasley, Polk County manager: $256,206<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Grady Judd, Polk County sheriff: $252,972<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Shawn Sherrouse, Lakeland city manager: $245,718<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Palmer Davis, Lakeland city attorney: $227,923<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Mike Brossart, Lakeland’s financial director: $227,385<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Randy Mink, Polk County’s attorney: $219,755<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. James Elensky, Haines City’s city manager: $215,249<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. T. Michael Stavres, Winter Haven’s city manager: $212,326<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  11. Richard Johnson, Mulberry city manager: $197,735<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  12. Stacy Butterfield, Polk County clerk of courts: $196,276<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  13. Mike Herr, Bartow city manager: $190,800<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  14. Wayne Green, Polk County Public School’s deputy superintendent: $188,687<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  15. Scott Bishop, Lakeland Electric’s assistant general manager of delivery: $187,624<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  16. Sam Taylor, chief of Lakeland Police Department: $185,949<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  17. Kelly Callihan, Davenport city manager: $183,872<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  18. Joe Halman, Polk County deputy manager: $182,118<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  19. John Bohde, Polk County deputy manager: $182,118<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  20. Ryan Taylor, Polk County deputy manager: $182,118<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  21. Heath Frederick, Lakeland Public Works director: $181,673<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  22. Jeff Tillman, Auburndale city manager: $181,160<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  23. Ramona SIrianni, Lakeland deputy city attorney: $179,780<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  24. James Slaton, Lake Wales city manager: $179,584<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  25. Doug Riley, Lakeland fire chief: $179,378<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNFwvMDNcL3NoZXJpZmYtanVkZC5qcGc_Zml0PTQ0OSUyQzU2MiZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IlRvcCAyNSBwYWlkIHB1YmxpYyBlbXBsb3llZXMgaW4gMjAyNSIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.OaI-kQzyfBSaeLTCdw3LELhPUys3tWVKfqQbO9leuugMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":42982,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/sheriff-judd.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[11987],"class_list":["post-57288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-top-25-paid-public-employees-in-2025"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57289,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57288\/revisions\/57289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}