Taxpayers are again staring at a Port Authority payroll that hands out six-figure overtime like candy, with 20 workers and 17 police officers topping $400,000 each.
Quick Take
- Twenty Port Authority workers made more than $400,000 last year, and 17 were police officers.
- The agency’s 2025 payroll rose above $1.2 billion, driven in part by heavy overtime.
- Three hundred twenty-three workers collected at least $100,000 in overtime, including 189 police officers.
- The Port Authority says overtime ran 18% above plan because of major capital projects.
Port Authority Payroll Reaches a New High
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey posted a 2025 payroll that topped $1.2 billion, while 20 workers took home about $400,000 each. Seventeen of those top earners were police officers, which keeps the focus on a pattern many taxpayers know well: public agencies that cannot seem to rein in overtime costs. The New York Post report also said eight of the agency’s top earners collected more than $200,000 in overtime alone.
The same reporting showed that 323 workers collected six figures in overtime, including 189 Port Authority police officers. That is not a one-off spike. It is a sign of a payroll system that rewards long hours on a scale most private workers never see. For readers who care about limited government and basic stewardship, the headline number matters because this is public money, and the bill keeps climbing while the agency’s pay structure stays stubbornly generous.
Police Pay Drives the Biggest Numbers
The agency’s police department sits at the center of the overtime problem. The Empire Center’s payroll analysis found that overtime was most common in the Police Department, where 201 employees collected more than $100,000 in overtime compensation. The same analysis said police department employees made up most of the top earners, and the highest-paid employee was Police Officer Melvin Cruz, who collected $475,599 in total pay, including $287,713 in overtime.
That kind of pay package feeds the public’s distrust of government payrolls. In 2024, the Empire Center also reported that 316 Port Authority employees collected more than $100,000 each in overtime, and six of the top payees made more than $200,000 in overtime alone. Those numbers help explain why critics keep saying the agency has lost control of costs. They also explain why so many commuters and taxpayers see the Port Authority as a symbol of public-sector excess.
Agency Officials Point to Capital Work
The Port Authority says overtime hours through the fourth quarter of 2025 were 18% higher than plan because of support for essential capital projects in its 2017 to 2025 capital plan. The agency says that work includes an unprecedented $30 billion-plus effort to rebuild major regional transportation assets. That explanation may help account for some of the increase, but it does not erase the size of the payroll or the concentration of overtime at the top.
20 Port Authority workers made over $400K last year as overtime soared and taxpayers are getting robbed https://t.co/gA4skbGm5V
— Homolander (@HomolanderOnX) August 8, 2026
There is also a long paper trail showing this is not a new fight. A New York State Comptroller follow-up audit said a prior audit found the Port Authority did not manage and control employee overtime costs, and that some overtime transactions lacked proper prior approval and justification. That matters because it puts the current debate in a broader pattern of weak oversight. When overtime becomes routine instead of rare, taxpayers end up funding poor discipline, not just extra work.
Why This Story Keeps Coming Back
The Port Authority’s own numbers and outside payroll reviews point to the same problem from different angles. The agency says it has major project demands. Critics say the scale of overtime shows broken management and weak cost control. Both can be partly true, but the results are hard to defend: a billion-dollar payroll, hundreds of workers with six-figure overtime, and police officers taking home pay that dwarfs what most families will ever see in a year.
That is why this story lands so hard with conservative readers. It is about more than one agency’s paychecks. It is about whether public institutions respect the people who fund them. When a bistate authority keeps piling up huge overtime bills, the public gets the same message again: spending discipline comes last, and taxpayers are left to cover the gap.
Sources:
zerohedge.com, empirecenter.org, newswall.org, panynj.gov
