The City of Palo Alto's payroll fell by 3 percent in 2012, though the rising costs of employee benefits kept the overall compensation level relatively steady.

The salary numbers, which the city released Thursday afternoon, show that public-safety officials are no longer dominating the list of highest paid employees as they had in years past. Whereas in 2011, 12 out of 15 top earners were from the Police or Fire departments (many of whom retired that year and "cashed out" unused vacation or holiday pay), in 2012, only six public-safety officials made the top 15. This year, the list of high earners featured more managers and department heads.

Fire Inspector John Parks led the way with $288,728 in total wages, including $115,400 in salary and $150,125 in overtime pay. He is followed on the high-earners lists by City Manager James Keene, who received $259,529 in total compensations (most of it is salary). Fire Captain Ryan Stoddard and Police Chief Dennis Burns were third and fourth, with total compensation of $224,883 and $223,004, respectively. City Attorney Molly Stump and Assistant City Manager Pamela Antil followed, with $221,492 and $220,639, respectively.

The list of employee salaries is now available on the city's Open Date site at http://paloalto.opendata.junar.com/dashboards/7917/finance.

The numbers illustrate the rising costs of employee benefits, which are keeping the city's total staff expenditures at about $100 million, despite a decreasing number of full-time positions. Since fiscal year 2010, the number of positions in the General Fund dropped from 705 to 655, according to the recently released City of Palo Alto Performance Report.

The overall salaries and benefits totaled just over $99 million in 2012, a decrease from the 2011 level of $102.1 million, though the 2011 figure was somewhat inflated by the large number of "cash-out" payments to retiring employees.

According to David Ramberg, assistant director of Administrative Services Department, benefit costs have been increasing by 8 percent annually, even as the number of employees making more than $100,000 went down by six between 2011 and 2012.