What Methuen Paid Its Employees in 2025

The city’s annual payroll report is public record. Here’s what’s in it, what it doesn’t include, and what it means for the city’s finances going forward.

Written by: Dan Shibilia

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Every year, the City of Methuen releases its payroll report. This is a public document listing what the city paid every municipal employee over the course of the year. It’s one of the most transparent windows taxpayers have into how their money is spent, and this year’s report is worth a close look. But, it still has its faults.

Before diving into the numbers, two important things to understand about what this report covers.

First, it does not include school department employees. Methuen Public Schools operates as a separate division in Harpers (the payroll company). The report reflecting School Employees is coming soon. The figures here reflect municipal employees only, covering departments like Police, Fire, DPW, Elder Services, and City Hall.

Second, the report shows total compensation paid, not just base salary. Overtime, paid details, stipends, longevity bonuses, and accrued leave buyouts all roll into that single total figure. That matters a lot when you’re looking at the names near the top of the list.

The top total compensation in 2025 went to now retired Fire Chief John T. Sheehy at $413,597. A substantial portion of that figure appears to be an accrued leave payout of roughly $253,000, the kind of lump sum that commonly occurs when a long-tenured department head separates from service. His base pay was listed at $160,221. Deputy Police Chief Randy Haggar came in second at $376,710, driven significantly by overtime and detail pay on top of a base of $173,783. Several officers and supervisors also topped $300,000 in total compensation: Sergeant Thomas F. Mc Menamon Jr. at $339,205, Lieutenant Joseph L. Rynne Jr. at $312,456, and Sergeant Jeffrey J. Torrisi at $301,488. In each case, substantial overtime, paid details, and incentive pay built on top of base salaries in the $100,000 to $130,000 range.

When you see large overtime and other pay figures next to police officers’ names, it’s worth knowing that not all of it comes from taxpayers. Paid details, when an officer works security at a construction site, a private event, or a utility project, are typically funded by the requesting party, not the city. A developer tearing up a street, for example, pays for the officer standing by. The payroll report does not break out which detail pay was funded by third parties versus our tax dollars. So, while the total compensation figures are accurate, they can overstate what Methuen taxpayers specifically paid for any given officer. That distinction matters when evaluating the city’s true labor cost exposure.

Mayor David Beauregard earned $114,039 in 2025. His salary is set by statute at $125,000, but it has been reduced in the annual budget, and the payroll report reflects what was actually paid. Police Chief Scott J. McNamara took home $273,317. City Councilors received $10,000 for the year, with Council Chair Ronald P. Marsan earning $11,000, Vice Chair Neily Soto earning $10,500, and departed Councilors Faretra and Saffie coming in proportionally less.

Among other notable figures, Chief Administrative and Financial Officer Margaret A. Duprey earned $199,188, Director of Human Resources Gina M. LaGreca earned $157,991, Director of DPW Patrick L. Bower came in at $151,607, and IT Chief Information Officer Luis Santiago earned $162,970. On the other end of the spectrum, dozens of employees in temporary help roles earned a few hundred to a few thousand dollars in seasonal or part-time work.

The 2025 payroll report reflects a year in which the City Council approved a wave of new collective bargaining agreements covering most of the municipal workforce. According to a financial analysis submitted to the Council by CAFO Maggie Duprey in October 2024, the city negotiated new three-year contracts running from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2027 with the following groups: Fire Local 1691, the DPW Employees Association, the Superintendents Local 123, the Police Superior Officers Association, AFSCME A and B, the Police Patrolmen’s Association, and Middle Management. All of those agreements are available at cityofmethuen.net/255/Collective-Bargaining-Agreements.

The financial picture those contracts create is worth understanding. According to Duprey’s analysis, the Police Patrolmen’s Association contract alone carries a projected cost of $2.4 million over three fiscal years: roughly $481,000 in year one, $824,000 in year two, and $1.1 million in year three as wage increases compound. The Fire contract was pegged at $773,000 in its first year. AFSCME A came in at $215,000 in year one, and the Police Superior Officers at $268,000. The full-year cost of all contracts approved at the July and August 2024 council meetings exceeded $2.1 million in FY25 alone, funded out of the existing personal services appropriation.

That’s not unusual for a city this size, and the administration indicated at the time that no additional appropriation appeared necessary for the first year. But the structure of these contracts matters. Multi-year deals with layered wage increases mean that the same number of employees will cost meaningfully more each successive year, independent of any new hires or expanded services. In a city where property tax revenue growth is stagnant due to a lack of commercial growth and further constrained by Proposition 2½, compounding labor costs place increasing pressure on every other line in the budget.

There are also longer-tail obligations that don’t appear in any single year’s payroll report. Large accrued leave payouts like the one likely reflected in Fire Chief Sheehy’s 2025 total are a predictable consequence of employees building up leave over long careers. As more long-tenured employees approach retirement, the city can expect more of these one-time but significant payouts in future years.

Payroll reports are useful, but they have real limits. They don’t show hours worked, the terms of individual contracts, or whether overtime reflects a structural staffing shortage or scheduling choices. They don’t separate third-party-funded detail pay from taxpayer-funded overtime. And they don’t include schools. What they do offer is a baseline for asking questions. If a department’s total compensation is climbing while its service levels aren’t, that’s worth raising at a City Council meeting. If you want to understand the specific terms driving these numbers, the collective bargaining agreements themselves are public and linked above.

View the full payroll report here: https://www.methuen.gov/.../2025-City-Payroll-Report-Final

View Collective Barginning Agreements here: https://www.cityofmethuen.net/255/Collective-Bargaining-Agreements