Editor’s note: This special report includes three other stories:

• Civil Beat share Honolulu employee salaries
• Honolulu’s lowest-paid employees
• Who works for the city of Honolulu

Honolulu’s highest-paid city employee isn’t the mayor. It isn’t the police or fire chief either. Not even the prosecuting attorney.

William Goodhue Jr., the city’s acting chief medical examiner, is the highest-paid city employee with an annual salary of $153,852.

The city’s Department of the Medical Examiner “serves the public through the investigation of sudden, unexpected, violent and suspicious deaths,” according to the department’s website. Goodhue joined the department in 2001 following his retirement from the U.S. Army, where he spent 26 years as a pathologist. He has an appointment as a clinical assistant professor at the University of Hawaii’s John A. Burns School of Medicine.

The national average salary for medical examiners varies from city to city. In medium-sized cities with average crime rates, they can earn between $75,000 and $145,000 per year, and in larger cities with higher crime rates, can make upwards of $230,000.

A Civil Beat analysis of 8,461¹ Honolulu city employee salaries determined the 50 highest-paid workers. Half of the top 10 are employees of the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, including No. 2 on the list, Brian Mckee, the department’s chief information technology officer.

The salary information is based on data as of Sept. 30, 2010, prior to the Oct. 11 swearing in of Mayor Peter Carlisle. Former Acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell is included on the list, in the No. 4 spot, with a salary of $136,428, the same salary Carlisle is now earning.

Because municipalities vary from small towns to large metro cities, the national average pay for mayors runs the gamut from the low $30,000s to upwards of $200,000. For example, the mayor of Dallas earns $60,000 a year, the mayor of New York makes $195,000 and the mayor of Los Angeles earns $205,661.

Still, Honolulu’s mayor earns more than Gov. Linda Lingle, who makes $117,312 a year. And at salaries of $118,344, most city department heads also earn more than the state’s governor.

Honolulu’s fire chief, Kenneth Silva, lands in the No. 5² spot with an annual salary of $136,236. That’s the same salary earned by Honolulu Police Department’s police chief, Louis Kealoha, although Kealoha was not included in the salary data provided by the city. (The Police Department is required to release all names except for current and former undercover officers. Determining who should fall under that category remains a subject of discussion between Civil Beat and the city.)

Honolulu’s former acting prosecuting attorney, Douglas Chin, is No. 8 on the list with a salary of $129,312 — which is what newly-elected Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro now makes. Chin, who was recently confirmed as the city’s new acting director, would fall in the No. 9 spot with an annual salary of $126,732.

Here’s a list of the top 50.

The salary report was based on data as of Sept. 30, 2010 and was run on Oct. 14, 2010.