In my position as a Federal employee, the public has access to not only my salary, but also an annual financial disclosure report which contains things like roughly how much money I have in my bank account, what stocks/mutual funds I own, and the like.
Currently those reports are only paper-based, but I would bet you anything that within a short period of time, they will all be online, and anyone can peruse not only how much the government pays me, but know roughly my net worth.
Just take solace that outside of your coworkers, nobody really cares.
It may be (I don’t know) that that the FOIA information does not include credentials, degrees, etc. Even those, however, won’t show experience and prior jobs.
My wife is faculty, so her pay data is public information here in CA. The local paper regularly runs articles on the top paid in the area, and what their pension costs are as well. I appreciate it - knowing that a local firefighter is pulling a 6 figure retirement package is information that I want. I don’t care about the individual, but it does impact how I feel when asked to pay higher taxes. Simply put, your pay impacts the tax payers. If the tax payers feel that they are getting their money’s worth, it is fine. However, if city services stink, and if city employees are non-responsive, AND if those same employees are making what seems to be a really nice package - be prepared for pushback.
Let’s take our DMV clerk. If I have a snotty DMV clerk who is moving slow, not helpful, and from my perspective worthless AND I find out that clerk is making $75k with no responsibilities aside from working that desk - damned straight I am going to complain to my state Assemblyman. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to work for the government. However, since you are paid by us, we get to find out how much you make so that we can determine if we like that pay level.
I think most states have these databases now. I know mine does, and you can look up all state employees’ salaries - there’s no cutoff figure for inclusion. If anything I would think it would show how little so many of us make.
That used to be true but there has been huge attacks against benefits. My wife worked for the IRS and her benefits and healthcare got weaker and weaker as time went by.
. The politicians also had a huge hard on for IRS employees that did not pay their taxes on time and thousands of them got fired. They are being besieged.
But why do they have to have my name? Some idiot in our area built a list of everyone who works for my agency, what their position/grade is, and what they make. Except, I no longer have that job, work at that grade, or make that amount.
In any case, the position title/pay grades are listed on our state human resources site. I am fine with them knowing my title and the pay grade associated with it. But why do people need to know exactly what I am paid before deductions? How does it benefit anybody to know that about me specifically?
I mean, if you have a problem with say, state employed engineers being at grade XXX - XXX depending on which agency and level they are at, can’t you just make that point in general? Does knowing Bob makes $69,000 a year as a E2 actually help you make your point? Especially if you don’t know if Bob has his PE, how many years of experience he has, etc.
I know it’s a condition of my employment that people can make a public information request and find out about me, including reprimands, awards received, etc. What I don’t appreciate is just getting all that information so you (generic) can post it and then ask people to come and point at us. But I know it’s part of the joys of being a state employee. That and my ever-decreasing benefits and compensation.
I have no problem with people doing a FOIA request on my employee profile. Sure, find out what KSA’s I had to demonstrate to get the job. Find out the results of my last perfomance evaluation. Yeah, find out what my base salary is, the last time I got a raise, and the median salary for my pay band. Search all you want. I don’t care.
But don’t just put my name in a database with a salary, job title, and nothing else. What the hell does that do but tell you that I make more or less than you do? Would discovering the low salary of a rude DMV employee mitigate his or her bad behavior? No. They should be disciplined whether they’re making $75,000 or $20,000.
It’s just a way for people who need to get lives to feel all self-righteous.
My stars, I can’t imagine why that would be. Oh, that’s right: for me to even get certification to even sit for the test to take to represent people before the IRS, I not only have to be completely current in my tax filings, but also be making unnecessary quarterly estimated payments. All of the tax returns I’ve filed since adulthood are going to be audited. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If I’ve got to jump through all of these hoops to talk to some phone jockey at the IRS, you bet your ass that call center employee better be current on their taxes too.
I’m not going to link to the trainwreck thread, but there’s a long one about Rand Rover’s firm encouraging him to do pro bono work, and whether it’s required by his license or not.
Except that, as I have demonstrated, I didn’t agree to do pro bono work as a condition of my employment. You are just too stupid to realize that, so you keep repeating this over and over and over, without ever providing any analysis to support your position.
If government workers don’t get paid lunch breaks, why did you bring it up? As I said, no one I know gets a paid lunch break no matter what their job or income, and since some government workers do get what the private sector considers to be unrealistic benefits, it would seem obvious from what you posted that at least some government workers get paid to go to lunch.
Hey, this is transparency in government. Deal with it.
I worked for a newspaper that did this 30 years ago. Our editor and publisher had to sue the state, but we got the list.
We also got (among other things) the list of people who had concealed carry permits. The editor found out from this list that a good friend was on it. So…knowing the special circumstances of this good friend, maybe his name should be omitted?
Nope. It was discussed, but we figured once the list was out, one or the other of the dailies would run it, too–so if we had left somebody off it would be obvious.
And newspaper editors are not supposed to have good friends anyway.
WRT the state salaries list, I do think it would have been just as helpful for them to put each job. No real need for the individual’s name. On the other hand, with the list you could put together that the job of brand inspector actually was kind of a political plum, in case you didn’t already know that. (It wasn’t supposed to be.)
Why do people keep telling me to “deal with it”? If the database not only provided my salary, but my total net worth, my birthday, and all the types of jobs I’ve ever held, would that be alright to reveal in a database as well? Would I just have to “deal with it” in that case as well?
Do you really think average Joe will do the research to find out which jobs are politically appointed and which ones aren’t? Isn’t that kind of analysis what journalists are paid to do? As it is now, people can find out that their neighbor has the job title Blankety-Blank Manager, Specialist II, with a salary of $60,000. We have no idea how long the neighbor has had to work for the agency to get to that salary, how many years he’s had that particular title or how he got it, or where his salary rates with others of his pay grade.
Just knowing someone’s salary doesn’t tell you a goddamn thing, I keep telling ya’ll.