Did you know Florida’s highest paid public employee is a basketball coach?

Ruben Fisher-Baum from DeadSpin.com reports, “You may have heard that the highest-paid employee in each state is usually the football coach at the largest state school. This is actually a gross mischaracterization: Sometimes it is the basketball coach. Based on data drawn from media reports and state salary databases, the ranks of the highest-paid active public employees include 27 football coaches, 13 basketball coaches, one hockey coach, and 10 dorks who aren’t even in charge of a team.”

To view how much in revenues college sports in Florida generated in 2012 click here.

So are Florida’s hard-earned tax dollars paying these coaches?

According to Fischer-Baum, “Probably not. The bulk of this coaching money—especially at the big football schools—is paid out of the revenue that the teams generate.”

So what’s the problem then? These guys make tons of money for Florida schools; shouldn’t they be paid accordingly?

Fischer-Baum says there are at least three problems.

1. Coaches don’t generate revenue on their own; you could make the exact same case for the student-athletes who actually play the game and score the points and fracture their legs.
2. It can be tough to attribute this revenue directly to the performance of the head coach. In 2011-2012, Mack Brown was paid $5 million to lead a mediocre 8-5 Texas team to the Holiday Bowl. The team still generated $103.8 million in revenue, the most in college football. You don’t have to pay someone $5 million to make college football profitable in Texas.
3. This revenue rarely makes its way back to the general funds of these universities. Looking at data from 2011-2012, athletic departments at 99 major schools lost an average of $5 million once you take out revenue generated from “student fees” and “university subsidies.” If you take out “contributions and donations”—some of which might have gone to the universities had they not been lavished on the athletic departments—this drops to an average loss of $17 million, with just one school (Army) in the black. All this football/basketball revenue is sucked up by coach and AD salaries, by administrative and facility costs, and by the athletic department’s non-revenue generating sports; it’s not like it’s going to microscopes and Bunsen burners.

Did you know that  471 University of Florida employees pulling down over $200,000 a year. UF has the most high-salaried employees of any state university in Florida, according to figures taken from state data for Spring 2013. In fact, 2,031 of its employees made at least $100,000.

Gov. Rick Scott’s office has expanded its public records website — floridahasarighttoknow.com — to include the $2.66 billion in salaries for more than 52,000 workers at Florida’s 11 universities.

To find the salary of any employee working for the state of Florida click here.