If you’ve lived in St. Louis for more than five minutes, you know we love to complain about two things: the potholes on Kingshighway and how much (or how little) the people running the city actually make. Honestly, for years, the conversation around city of st louis salaries was pretty grim. We were losing good people to the county or to St. Charles because our pay scales looked like they hadn't been touched since the 90s.
But things changed. Big time.
As of early 2026, the City of St. Louis is in the middle of a massive compensation shake-up. We aren't just talking about a few extra bucks in a Christmas bonus. We're talking about a $10 million annual commitment to bring civil service pay into the modern era.
The 2026 Salary Shift: Breaking Down the Numbers
The city finally got a wake-up call in late 2025. A massive classification and compensation study basically confirmed what everyone already knew—St. Louis was trailing the market. If you were a non-uniformed civil service worker, there was a good chance you were earning way below your peers in neighboring municipalities.
Mayor Cara Spencer—who has taken a very different stance than her predecessors on labor—pushed through a plan to fix the "floor."
The goal was simple.
Make the city a place where people actually want to work.
Starting February 1, 2026, the city began implementing new pay range minimums. This wasn't for everyone, though. It specifically targeted about 600 non-uniformed employees who were the furthest behind. We're talking about the folks in the Water Division, the Street Department, and Health Services who were stuck in pay grades that didn't reflect the 2026 cost of living.
👉 See also: Why 425 Market Street San Francisco California 94105 Stays Relevant in a Remote World
Who is making what?
It's helpful to look at the actual gross pay data from the last fiscal cycle to see the spread. According to the 2025 public payroll records, the medians are telling:
- Police Division: The median gross pay sits right around $80,078.
- Fire Division: Usually a bit higher due to overtime and structure, with a median of $91,202.
- Mayor's Office: A smaller team, but with a median around $73,072.
- Streets Department: Often the unsung heroes, these folks are seeing medians near $49,959.
You’ve gotta realize that "gross pay" includes overtime. For police and fire, that number is often significantly higher than their base salary because, well, the city is short-staffed and people are working a ton of extra shifts.
The Police and Fire Factor
Public safety is always the biggest chunk of the budget. It’s also where the drama is. In January 2025, the city reached a landmark deal with the St. Louis Police Officers' Association (SLPOA).
They got a 7% raise.
But there was a catch—there’s always a catch, right? To fund that raise, the city and the union agreed to "trim" the budgeted number of officers from 1,224 down to 1,100. Basically, they admitted they couldn't fill the empty seats anyway, so they might as well use that "ghost" money to pay the people who actually show up.
An officer graduating from the Academy now starts at $56,920. Not bad, but still a tough sell when you consider what the job actually entails in some of our neighborhoods.
✨ Don't miss: Is Today a Holiday for the Stock Market? What You Need to Know Before the Opening Bell
Firefighters and the Matrix
The Fire Department saw their own wins. Roughly 600 uniformed fire employees had their pay matrix adjusted in early 2026. If you look at the top earners in the city, firefighters and police captains almost always dominate the list. In 2024, the top earner in the Fire Division cleared over $227,000.
Is that a lot? Sure. But that person probably didn't see their family for half the year because of back-to-back shifts.
The "Benefits" Trap
One thing the city's Department of Personnel loves to point out is that while our base city of st louis salaries might look lower than, say, Chesterfield, our benefits are kinda insane.
The city puts about 17.15% of an employee's salary into retirement.
Most private companies give you a 3% match if you’re lucky.
The city’s contribution is 5 percentage points above the market average.
Also, most city employees don't have to put a single cent of their own paycheck into their pension. That’s a "hidden" salary that most people forget to calculate when they’re looking at a job offer at City Hall.
What Most People Get Wrong About Mayor Salaries
There's always this myth that the Mayor is the highest-paid person in the city.
Nope. Not even close.
🔗 Read more: Olin Corporation Stock Price: What Most People Get Wrong
In 2025, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ gross pay was listed at $131,820. While that’s a great living, her Chief of Staff actually made more—pulling in $178,196. In fact, there are dozens of IT managers, police commanders, and department directors who out-earn the Mayor.
By 2026, with the new salary ordinances, we’re seeing a shift where technical roles—think civil engineers and cybersecurity analysts—are finally getting "market-responsive" pay. The city realized they couldn't keep hiring people for $45k when Express Scripts or Purina would pay them $90k for half the stress.
The Reality of Working for the City
Look, working for St. Louis isn't just about the paycheck. There’s a residency requirement for some, though that’s been a political football for years.
If you're looking at city of st louis salaries because you're thinking of applying, you need to look at the "Classification and Pay Plan." It’s a giant document that lists every job from "Abatement Worker" to "Zoning Administrator."
- Check the Grade: Every job has a grade (like Grade 15 or Grade 20).
- Find the Step: You usually start at Step 1. You move up a step every year you don't get fired.
- Account for the 2026 Bump: Most of the online PDF schedules you find are outdated. The 2026 ordinance added a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) that is still being rolled out across different unions.
Moving Forward: Actionable Insights for Job Seekers
If you’re hunting for a role or just trying to negotiate your current city position, here’s the ground truth:
- Target the "Under-Market" Roles: The city is currently desperate to fill roles in the Streets, Water, and Health departments. Because these were the most "under-paid" in the 2025 study, they have the most upward mobility in the 2026 budget.
- Negotiate on Experience: The city's Personnel Department has become more flexible with "Advanced Step Entry." If you have 10 years of experience, don't let them start you at Step 1. You can push for Step 5 or 6, which can mean a $10,000 difference.
- Leverage the Pension: If you’re comparing a city job to a private sector job, add 15% to the city's base salary to get a "real" comparison. That’s the value of the retirement contribution you aren't paying for.
- Watch the Board of Aldermen: Pay raises in St. Louis are political. If you see a "Compensation Ordinance" on the agenda, it usually means a raise is coming. Keep an eye on the budget hearings in the spring.
The days of St. Louis being the "cheap" employer in the region are slowly ending. It’s not perfect, and the bureaucracy is still a headache, but the 2026 pay overhaul has finally put some respect back into the city payroll.
If you want to see exactly what a specific person makes, the Missouri Accountability Portal (MAP) is your best friend. It’s updated regularly, and by mid-2026, it should reflect all the new raises pushed through by the Spencer administration.
Don't just look at the base rate. Look at the total package, the overtime potential, and the fact that you're actually helping a city that’s finally trying to get its act together.