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Executive assistants hired temporarily by the City and County of Honolulu make more money than most of their civil engineer, police officer, project manager and chemist counterparts.

According to a prepared by the city , five executive assistants hired under personal services contracts made or make between $6,848 and $8,750 per month. Another assistant earns $65.78 an hour, but is not a full-time employee.

The highest paid contracted makes $7,700 a month. Most contracted police officers earn $19.73 per hour; project managers average $5,760 per month and even a chemist made only $3,511 each month.

are awarded if there is a special, or unique need essential to public interest. The contracts cannot exceed a year and are generally used when the needed service can’t be obtained by “normal civil service recruitment procedures,” according to . (Read about the pay of other city workers and find a searchable database of all employees in an earlier Civil Beat article.)

Basically, the city is given more flexibility in hiring its employees under personal service contracts.

The contract report offers a glimpse into what types of workers departments feel are necessary, but aren’t on staff. There’s great latitude in who can be hired, with clerks, typists and investigators among those included. Most departments take advantage of the contracts, with police coming out on top.

The Honolulu Police Department hired 55 workers on a temporary basis. The Board of Water Supply hired 44 and the Department of Transportation Services contracted 31. Twenty-one other departments hired between one and 29 people.

A few positions proved to be more lucrative than executive assistant, but not many.

For example, Terrance Ware, a with the , has the highest monthly salary among contractors, making $11,334 a month. Ware was contracted for a full year, from Sept. 1, 2010, to Aug. 31, 2011. His yearly salary comes to about $136,000.

Richard Torres with transportation services was contracted as an “Assistant Transit Project Officer” for the period July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011. Torres makes $9,359 per month, or about $112,300 a year.

Executive assistants, however, rivaled those numbers. And almost across the board to boot.

Martin Okabe, an executive assistant with the , was contracted for a year and makes $7,902 per month, or about $94,800 a year.

Six other executive assistants listed in the worked more sporadically but with relatively hefty monthly salaries.

Joyce Oliveria, with the , listed as a “Departmental Staff Executive Assistant,” topped the list making $8,750 per month. Oliveria is contracted to work from Oct. 7, 2010 to June 30, 2011. Her contract would deliver about $77,500.

Robert Fishman, an executive assistant in the mayor’s office, makes $65.78 an hour, but works only 19 hours per week. Fishman was contracted for the period Oct. 25, 2010 to April 21, 2011.

Three other assistants earned $7,624 a month, $7,189 a month and $6,848 per month.

The lone outlier among executive assistants, working in the managing director’s office, made only $3,249 per month between July 1 and Oct. 27 last year.

The highest paid , Akira Fujita, with transportation services, makes $7,700 a month and was contracted for a year, through June 30.

The lowest monthly paid under contract received $3,925 per month. Another engineer makes $13.16 per hour, working a little less than half of a full-time schedule.

Two other civil engineers earned $5,848 on a monthly basis and worked for four and seven and a half months, respectively, in 2010.

The contracted 27 (also known as police officers), all paid at a rate of $19.73 per hour.

The majority of those contracted officers (22) worked for 88 days. All worked the equivalent of a full-time schedule. Assuming an eight-hour work day, the officers would pocket about $13,900.

Project managers, of which there were six, were all paid on a monthly basis. Three were paid at a rate of $5,852, and the other three were paid $3,511, $6,087 and $7,404 a month.

A with environmental services made $3,511 per month, from August 31 to Dec. 31, 2010.

The personal services contract report was submitted to the Honolulu City Council Jan. 12. The next quarterly report is expected to be completed some time this month.