To determine the highest paid public employees in each state, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed publicly available salary data for government and public university employees compiled by OpenTheBooks.com, an independent government watchdog organization, and Feds Data Center, a website that compiles data of federal employee salaries. We only considered salaries reported for 2019. Salaries for coaches came from USA Today and are also for 2019.

Some federal employees are not included with these pay figures as the government has concluded employees in some agencies are involved in national security work and that it is not in the public interest to release their individual pay information.