Nebraska Report Show High Goverment Psychiatrist Pay

A new report (pdf) from the State of Nebraska Auditor's Office reveals who are the highest paid people on the state's payroll. Not unexpectedly, the highest paid were associated with the University of Nebraska football program. But many of the top paying jobs not involved with football went to government psychiatrists. See this snippet from the report:

Over 200 State Employees received gross salaries of $100,000 and above. The Department of Health and Human Services takes many of the top spots on the list, followed by Supreme Court, District and County Judges.

The top 20 State Employees receiving gross pay of over $100,000 are:

NAME	POSITION	PAY	DEPARTMENT
Hartmann, Klaus	Psychiatrist	$206,023.70	Health and Human Services
Oneill, Stephen J	Psychiatry Clinical Director	$205,107.60	Health and Human Services
Tatay, Rafael	Psychiatrist	$200,710.55	Health and Human Services
Kohl, Randy T	Medical Director	$199,905.67	Correctional Services
Shaffer, Lawrence B	Psychiatrist/Clinical	$196,737.23	Health and Human Services
Moore, Yancey S	Psychiatry Clinical Director	$189,805.62	Health and Human Services
Stephenson, Daryl R	Psychiatrist	$180,174.56	Health and Human Services
Carpenter, Stanley H	Chancellor	$176,090.00	State Colleges
Kamal, Mohammad S	Psychiatrist	$171,375.61	Correctional Services
Roth, Barbara	Psychiatrist	$166,152.90	Health and Human Services
Dewan, Vijay	Psychiatrist	$165,000.00	Health and Human Services
Voss, Tod W Medical	Director	$164,442.97	Health and Human Services
Christensen, Douglas D	Commissioner Of Education	$159,567.24	Education
Collings, Richard J	President	$157,513.04	State Colleges
Martin, Louis C	Psychiatrist	$157,027.32	Health and Human Services
Johnson, Ben E	President	$156,404.00	State Colleges
King, Jennifer L	Medical Director	$154,603.82	Health and Human Services
Hill, Marshall	Director	$152,370.96	Coord. Comm. for Postsecondary Education
Thaut, Harold W	Medical Director	$152,367.94	Health and Human Services
Park, Janie	President	$151,664.00	State Colleges

The list of vendors and state and university personnel gross salaries was summarized from the detailed information provided at the request of State Auditor by the Nebraska Information System (NIS) team and the University of Nebraska-Central Administration.

The purpose of the Auditor of Public Accounts’ office is to provide independent, accurate, and timely audits, or reviews, of the financial operations of Nebraska State and local governments.

The Special Audit and Evaluation Unit manages a ‘whistle-blower’ hotline the public can call, anonymously if necessary, to report suspected abuse of government resources.

The hotline number for Lincoln is (402) 471-3686

and outside of Lincoln is 1-800-842-8348.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.auditors.state.ne.us

Any reasonable person looking at this would likely say that this is odd. We have to wonder what value these highly paid psychiatrists are delivering to the State of Nebraska, and we think that legislators would do well to look at these psychiatrist salaries as a prime place for cost savings.