In Nashville, tens of thousands of people make their living working for Nashville's government.
Some of them earn far more than their colleagues, according to data available on a city portal. In 2025, the top couple dozen or so Nashville officials earned base salaries totaling well over $6.5 million.
Nashville's spending on employee pay will look even higher once that data's updated near the end of 2026, thanks to the 2027 fiscal year budget approved by the Metro Nashville Council earlier this summer that added nearly $37 million in employee wage increases.
Here's a look at some of last year's highest base salaries from the list, organized by city department. Base salaries don't include overtime, bonuses or other compensation. The figures included
in the photo gallery below are taken from a dataset last updated in December 2025.
Austin Hornbostel is the Metro reporter for The Tennessean. Have a question about local government you want an answer to? Reach him at ahornbostel@tennessean.com.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: See which Nashville officials top the list of highest base salaries
