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Jurisdiction file

Louisville Metro, Kentucky employee compensation

Source file: Louisville Metro — Employee Salaries / ingested Jun 18, 2026

In 2026, Louisville Metro, Kentucky reported 6,588 employees across 46 departments, with a total payroll of $211.5M. The highest-paid distinct record was Erika Shields (Louisville Metro Police) at $217,173.

Latest year
2026
Total payroll
$211.5M
Departments
46
Employees
6,588
Top record
$217,173

What the records show

Department analytics

Median pay and headcount show where payroll dollars concentrate and which agencies define the jurisdiction’s compensation profile.

Largest departments

The 12 departments employing the most people in 2026. Bar length is headcount. These departments drive most of the payroll and set the overall pay mix.

Highest-paying departments

Departments ranked by median total compensation — the typical employee's pay. High medians usually signal specialized or professional workforces (e.g. medical, legal, or public-safety agencies) rather than across-the-board higher pay.

Compared with the local labor market

Louisville Metro, Kentucky pay vs. the surrounding job market

Across 36 roles that match a standard occupation, Louisville Metro, Kentucky’s median base salary runs 29% below the median wage for the same work in Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN. 2 of those roles pay above the local median and 34 pay below it.

Roles compared
36
Above local median
2
Below local median
34
Typical gap
−29%

This covers the 3,937 employees (60% of the workforce) in roles whose job titles map to a standard occupation. Titles that are too generic to match one — broad classification series, and job families the survey reports by academic field — are left out rather than guessed at, so the figure describes the comparable subset, not the entire payroll.

Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.

Trend

Year over year

How Louisville Metro, Kentucky's total payroll, headcount, and average pay changed across the 6 published years. Average pay is total payroll divided by employees.

YearTotal payrollEmployeesAverage pay
2021
$325M
6,672
$48,706
2022
$373.3M
14.9%
6,731
0.9%
$55,453
13.9%
2023
$380.3M
1.9%
6,988
3.8%
$54,424
1.9%
2024
$418M
9.9%
7,327
4.9%
$57,043
4.8%
2025
$450.9M
7.9%
7,201
1.7%
$62,612
9.8%
2026
$211.5M
53.1%
6,588
8.5%
$32,099
48.7%

Department index

Open an agency file

Department pages break down pay distributions, common job titles, and the employees behind the latest published payroll.

46 departments