As private-sector executives eagerly await bonus season, the debate has once again arisen around contractor and public-sector pay. But as organizations--such as the Project on Government Oversight, the Professional Services Council and even the Office of Federal Procurement Policy--sound off on the issue, it's difficult to make an accurate, apples-to-apples comparison on wages.

Typically contractors enjoy higher base salaries and government executives enjoy more security, better healthcare and a nice pension. In this report, FierceGovernmentIT looked at base pay for federal CIOs in 2010.

The average salary among the 16 CIOs in this report was $166,982. Four CIOs tied for the highest salary in 2010, raking in $179,700.

Click through the slideshow or use the index below to go directly to a CIO's page.

• Department of Agriculture CIO Chris Smith 
• Department of Commerce CIO Simon Szykman 
• Department of Education CIO Danny Harris 
• Environmental Protection Agency CIO Malcolm Jackson 
• General Services Administration CIO Casey Coleman 
• Department of Health and Human Services CIO John Teeter 
• Department of Homeland Security CIO Richard Spires 
• Department of Housing and Urban Development CIO Jerry Williams 
• Department of the Interior CIO Bernard Mazer 
• Department of Justice CIO Eric Olson
• Department of Labor CIO Michael Kerr 
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration CIO Linda Cureton 
• Office of Personnel Management CIO Matthew Perry 
• Office of Management and Budget, Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel 
• Department of Transportation CIO Nitin Pradhan
• Department of Veterans Affairs CIO Roger Baker
• Teri Takai, Darren Ash, Susan Swart and more...

All salary data was gathered from Data Universe, a database of public information collected and made searchable by Asbury Park Press. According to Paul D'Ambrosio, investigations editor at APP, the publication obtains all Data Universe information through Freedom of Information Act requests.

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