'Portal' will list state salaries

[harvey007]

Source: Santa Fe New Mexican

On Saturday, Gov. Susana Martinez announced to the New Mexico Press Association that the state's official transparency website will soon include the names, titles and salary rates of all state employees regardless of classification.

Read more: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/-Portal--will-list-state-salaries

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[seacaves]

2. It is a vile deviding practice that Walker has used

successfully in WI. Salaries were always know but Walker, the Governor has spent months dividing the state.

[quaker bill]

3. Rick Scott has done the same in FL

[doc03]

4. Kasich done the same in Ohio, it's all about turning the

private sector against public sector workers.

[Firebrand Gary]

5. Then we should publish EVERY public penny that we pay to the private sector.

The solution is simple. Americans should know exactly what EACH INDIVIDUAL KBR, Backwater, Xe contractor gets paid. Transparency is transparency right?

[primavera]

8. Amen!!!

People get upset thinking that some public employee is making $50K/year, yet turn right around and give their money to businesses whose executives are paid $50 million/year?!

[No Elephants]

17. If it's tax money, we have a right to know.

[warrior1]

6. they are

ready do this in California.

[shanti]

26. already done

but you have to look for it in the sacramento bee. it all came about when GAS was in office, so you can be sure the kochs were behind it. that was GAS's main thrust during his tenure, to destroy the unions.

[musiclawyer]

7. I work in the public sector

We make peanuts compared to the private sector. At all levels except, ironically, for the unskilled jobs such as janitor. And they should make more. Have at it

[snooper2]

30. how much does a janitor make, should they make more than a welder with Parks and Recreation?

More or less than a water safety instructor?

[Gore1FL]

9. Welcome to my world

I work for Missouri. Anyone who wants can see my salary online too. They can see the custodial staff wages, the groundskeeper's wages--nyone you want.

I am not sure why this data is useful to anyone.

[totodeinhere]

10. State workers' salaries are already in the public record. You can look them up on the basis of job

classification. So I don't see a need for this new policy. There is no need to attach names to the job classifications. I don't see the purpose for listing specific names unless the idea is to put the workers in danger from anti government zealots who would do them physical harm.

[No Elephants]

18. Agree. Job classification should be more than sufficient.

[greymattermom]

11. My salary is on line

and visible to anyone who knows how to use the state site. It can be useful to know how much your colleagues are paid sometimes.

[avaistheone1]

12. I have no problem with that.

I think it should be public information.

K&R

:kick:

[Gore1FL]

14. Perhaps over a certain amount.

You knowing my salary as a public worker does neither of us any good. It gives a lot of marketers a lot of information on me that I'd prefer they not have.

[No Elephants]

19. Your job classification, and maybe years in it, is the most info that should be online,

not your name or address.

The issue is how tax (our) money is being spent, not what Mr. X or Ms. Y makes.

Maybe it should even go by department and number of employees in a that department, along with how much that department spends per year aside from salaries.

I am not sure exactly, but there has to be some balance between the right of taxpayers to know how their money is being spent and the right of a state employee to a reasonable degree of privacy.

[Gore1FL]

24. For me you see it down to the penny. n/t

[No Elephants]

28. What about unions? Are they protesting that? Are you all asking them to protest it?

Mass. General Hospital has drivers who shuttle patients in small and large buses from the "main campus," as they call it and other hospitals and health care centers now owned by Mass. General. (Mergers kind of defeated poor Sen. Kennedy's efforts at small neighborhood health centers, but that is another story.)

For some reason, Mass General decided the drivers had to hang their ID's up in the buses. Problem was, the ID included both their photo and first and last name. The drivers, fearing for their own safety on their off hours, wanted permission to cover the last names. The hospital refused and the union would not fight it.

When jobs are scarce, employers can get away with a lot.

The kleptocracy's plutonomy works very well. Not much else does, but the kleptocracy's plutonomy does. For the 1%, of course.

[greymattermom]

31. me too

[Laluchacontinua]

13. Gearing up for the attack on public workers.

[quaker bill]

15. Precisely

[Newsjock]

16. Just another way to destroy government from within

Make public service so unattractive to talented workers that they return to the private sector. Then, claim that government is broken.

Who, I ask, are the real anarchists?

[No Elephants]

20. Thing is, the same folks putting this info online are the same folks who decided what those salaries

would be.

Sure, there are unions, but the final decision is up to the Mayor, City Council, Governor, President or whatever.

There needs to be a reaasonable balance between the right of taxpayers to know how and by whom their money is being spent and why, and the right of public sector employees to a reasonable degree of privacy.

I am not sure how to strike that balance. Maybe it is by department--a range of salaries within that department and how much that department spends on things other than salaries, including consultant fees to the private sector.

Maybe that is not the exact right balance, but people whose day job is to think about things like this, unions and elected officials, should negotiate something that is reasonable.

[coyote]

21. Hey why stop there....let's see full transparency with charter schools

and how their budgets ares spent, for example. I am especially interested on money spent for administration.

[Sancho]

22. Most state salaries have been public for decades...

at least in three states I've lived in. Teachers, professors, police, and most employee salaries were either available if you asked or the pay scale was freely offered. Rick Scott and some of these idiots keep salaries hidden in the business/corporate world, but anyone who cares about it could get public pay for years.

The really crazy salaries are the ones the administrators (school superintendents, college presidents, etc.) get.

:grr:

[UTUSN]

29. All excellent points. n/t

[snooper2]

32. Here it is for Plano TX, City Manager hired in 1990 making $210,000

I guess that seems reasonable..

http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee-salaries/plano/

[BiggJawn]

23. The local paper publishes the list for the University.

Every year when the pay list for the U comes out, the local puppy-piddler makes a big deal over it.

Then the local worhties who didn't finish High School and make $9 an hour pushing a broom at the auto plant scream bloody murder than somebody with a degree is being paid $42,000 a year.

The endless screams about their "Hard-Earned money being ripped from them at the Point of a Gun"...

[shanti]

25. the Sacramento Bee provided a database

to the names, departments and salaries of all california state employees. it was not well received by them.

[boppers]

27. That should end some of the fraud and waste.

Or, at least, make it more obvious... of course, to really work systemically, it needs to span more than just state workers. As others have noted, there's a lot going to "contractors" and "agencies" that's aren't state employees.

[AnneD]

33. It is all a...

divide and conquer strategy on the part of those in charge.