Nearly 1,800 public employees make more than the governor

What do UMass basketball coach Derek Kellogg, State Police Lt. Lawrence Berghaus, and Bridgewater State University President Dana Mohler-Faria all have in common?

They are among the 1,794 state workers who can boast that they earned more than Gov. Deval Patrick so far this year, according to state data.

Kellogg tops the list, earning $1.14 million as of Nov. 9, according to data available on the state’s Open Checkbook website; Mohler-Faria earned $248,409 and Berghaus earned $202,155.

Meanwhile, Patrick — the chief executive officer of Massachusetts, who oversees a $46 billion budget — earned $134,285 by the first week in November, according to the data, which includes salary and overtime payments.

The governor’s salary has been in debate since the Dec. 1 release of a seven-member advisory commission report recommended that the state’s chief executive receive a nearly 22 percent pay raise from the $151,800 annual salary he now earns to $185,000.

Indeed, the commission, made up of public and private officials, recommended that the state significantly raise salaries for most of the state’s top officials, including the governor, the attorney general, and the house speaker and senate president.

Ira Jackson, chair of the commission and dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said the group reached this conclusion after examining compensations and considering issues, including the ability to attract qualified and diverse public officials, the region’s high cost of living and related salaries within and outside of the state.

For example, the commission pointed out that among those who earn more than the governor are the chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, all trial court judges, district attorneys, and presidents and chancellors of all 29 state colleges and universities.

Jackson said group’s intention was not to “name and shame” the hundreds of other employees who make more than the governor. However, he said the state’s governor should be “adequately compensated” for his or her work.

“We are not suggesting that they are underpaid or overpaid,’’ he said. “We are simply saying that you don’t want to have the person who is running the organization have 2,000 people who are reporting to him or her earning more.”

The committee also recommended that the raises — that would cost the state nearly $1 million annually — should come out of current state budgets without any impact on services and not be an added burden to taxpayers.

While the state’s Open Checkbook provides individual salary data, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting obtained a copy of the entire spreadsheet of state employees paid by the state this year.

According to data, nearly half of the top highest paid state employees work for the University of Massachusetts, including UMass football Coach Charles Molnar who earned $963,035 by Nov. 9, 2014 and Michael Collins, a UMass chancellor who made $822,477.87.

Michael Widmer, president of the Boston-based nonprofit Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation who also sat on the commission, said members did not analyze whether other state workers were getting overpaid. However, he said they were struck by the quantity of employees who earn more than the governor.

“One might say they make too much,” he said about some employees. However, “when 1,700 state employees make more than the governor, that is a shocking number and illustrates the reasonableness of our recommendation.”