Andrew Kerley, Executive Editor Emeritus
Heciel Nieves Bonilla, News Editor Emeritus
Last April, The CT obtained VCU and VCU Health’s payrolls for active employees through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request. A new version of the payroll is now available. The data is publicly available information.
Click here to view the VCU payroll via Google Sheets — organized by name, title, department, salary, earnings and bonuses. Click here to view the VCU Health payroll.
The CT originally requested “a comprehensive list of Virginia Commonwealth University/VCU Health System Authority’s payroll, to include employee names, titles, departments and salaries” in spreadsheet form.
The salary data was pulled in April 2026. The CT received the contents of the requests on April 22, 2026. Additional information, including exact earnings and bonuses, was received in May 2026. The data provided is an exact copy of what VCU sent to The CT.
Who isn’t on the payroll
Employees earning a salary of less than $10,000 or less per year are not included, pursuant to Virginia state code.
People exclusively employed by MCV Physicians, VCU Health’s nonprofit wing, are also not included. Nonprofits are not considered public bodies subject to FOIA requests, thus The CT could not obtain that information.
Some names have been removed from the payroll at the request of employees due to particular circumstances jeopardizing their safety. The CT removed/changed those individuals’ names, but not their salaries or other data.
Payroll now includes exact earnings, bonuses
Upon initially posting the payroll in April, numerous employees reached out to The CT saying their listed salaries did not reflect their true earnings.
The data provided by VCU represented employees’ wages as though they all worked full time and year-round, according to VCU spokesperson Michael Porter. Due to the way the data was calculated, the provided salaries were not an accurate reflection of everyone’s earnings.
To correct the record, The CT submitted additional FOIA requests for employees’ exact earnings in tax year 2025, as well as their bonuses in academic years 2024-25 and 2025-26.
The new VCU spreadsheet includes salaries, exact earnings and bonuses for employees. The VCU Health spreadsheet includes salaries and exact earnings, but not bonuses. Not every employee has data for every category.
New wage data draws new conclusions
A previous report by The CT outlined the wide wage gaps between VCU administrators and other staff.
The median salary among VCU staff was $74,257 and the average salary was $91,149. Using exact earnings from tax year 2025, the median was $67,181 and the average was $83,746 — over $7,000 less in both statistics.
The median salary among VCU Health staff is $69,371 and the average salary is $74,156. The median earnings in tax year 2025 was $71,945 and the average was $77,738.
The average and median earnings for both institutions do not account for those who make a salary of less than $10,000 per year.
The total earnings for VCU employees in tax year 2025 was nearly $706 million. The total earnings for VCU Health employees was about $870 million.
While The CT previously reported that President Michael Rao had the highest salary among his institution’s employees at $895,618, he was not the highest earner in tax year 2025. That distinction goes to men’s basketball head coach Phil Martelli Jr, who earned $1,153,726. The second highest earner was Massey Cancer Center director Robert Winn at $1,007,066. Rao brought home $1,003,813. The three were the only VCU employees to make over $1 million.
The highest earners at VCU Health in tax year 2025 were chief operating officer Michael Elliot, chief financial officer James Siegel and chief legal officer Kimberly Gillespie with $1,036,048, $986,148 and $791,861 respectively.
Name removal policy
This data was provided by VCU and VCU Health through FOIA requests. Both institutions are public entities and their employee wage data is public information. The CT published the payroll to promote wage transparency.
The CT is committed to protecting the safety of our readers. VCU and VCU Health employees may request that their names be updated or removed due to:
- Their deadnames or non-professional names being included
- Circumstances jeopardizing their safety
- Other extraordinary circumstances
The CT is only removing names, not salaries or other data. A previous version of the payroll provided by VCU Health included the locations of employees’ departments. The location information has since been removed, leaving only the department names.
To request that your name be updated or removed, please email editor@commonwealthtimes.org.