NEW YORK – More than half of New York State’s top 100 highest paid public school employees work on Long Island, and many rake in well over $300,000 a year.

The highest paid public school employee in New York is Joyce Bisso, a 69-year-old superintendent at Hewlett-Woodmore schools, took home a total of $625,214 for the fiscal year ending June 30, which included salary, benefits and payouts for unused sick and vacation days, Newsday reports.

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In total, a dozen of the top 20 highest paid school officials, 32 of the top 50, and 57 of the highest paid 100, worked in schools in Nassau and Suffolk counties, including former East Meadow’s school superintendent Louis DeAngelo at $454,527, Jericho superintendent Henry Grishman at $371,374, Syosset deputy superintendent Jeffrey Steitman at $371,124, and Locust Valley superintendent Anna Hunderfund at $355,833.

The ever-growing salaries have raised the ire of taxpayers in recent years, primarily because they have no say in how much of their tax dollars are spent on salary and special perks for the public officials.

“As a taxpayer, you don’t have a chance to comment on (new superintendent contracts) before it’s too late to do anything about it,” Empire Center for Public Policy executive director Tim Hoefer told Newsday. “I don’t know why you have to hide it.”

The New York State Council of School Superintendents attempted to justify the massive payouts by highlighting the fact pay increases for school chiefs statewide has increased by less than 1 percent each of the last five years, though the average increase this year was 1.7 percent.

Superintendents themselves have also attempted to explain why their salaries are sky high.

“You work as hard as you can in what is essentially a 24/7 job,” Bisso told the news site, pointing to controversial issues like Common Core and teacher evaluations. “I would just tell you the job is a major challenge, very challenging.”

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“Most school administrators and university faculty listed in the upper ranks of compensation have decades of experience. The careers of many began in the 1970s,” according to Newsday. “DeAngelo, the former East Meadow superintendent, worked 30 years in that district as a superintendent, assistant superintendent and director of special education after teaching special education classes in private schools and at Western Suffolk BOCES.”

“We’re never without our cell phones,” DeAngelo told the site.

Newsday collected the data on school administrator salaries through a public information request to the state’s teachers’ retirement system. The data contained pay information for about 250,000 New York teachers and school employees.

Others to top the list included State University of New York obstetrician Ovandia Abulafia, who took home $539,076 from SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn; emergency physician Michael Lusshesi who earned $506,590 at the same place; as well as Esther Takeuchi, a chemical engineer with Stony Brook University, who was paid $418,936 last year.