You pay public employees’ salaries. Now you have an easy way to see how your tax money is spent.
A collection of databases presents salary information in a way that’s easy to view. You can search by job, department or an employee’s first or last name. All the information is from public records. Missouri and Kansas laws require governments to make the information available to the public.
In these databases, salary information – in most cases, from 2007 – is available for public employees of:
Please note that the databases don’t provide an apples-to-apples comparison. Some governments provide base salaries, while others include all compensation, including overtime and other pay benefits. Some include part-time as well as full-time employees, employees who worked just part of the year and other factors that affect the salaries shown. Information at the start of each database notes basics about those salaries. Of course, multiple factors affect pay, including experience, education, specialized training, skill level and more.
While the vast majority of public employees' salaries come from taxpayers, private grants, user fees and other sources pay some government workers’ salaries.
In addition to this information on public salaries in our region, here are links to sites with information on salaries of federal employees. They contain some categories of information different from the preceding databases. One was compiled by the Asbury Park Press: 2006 federal employees locations and salaries. The other is a table from the federal government: 2008 wages by grades and steps.
Why publish people’s pay?
Employee salaries often make up the single largest item in governments’ budgets, just as they often are the largest expense for a private company. Examining the information in these databases can provide insights on how fairly governments compensate public employees, how pay for public positions compares with pay in the private sector, how pay varies by position and more. (To see nationwide statistics comparing pay in the public and private sectors, go to public workers and private workers.)
Missouri and Kansas laws require governments to make such information available to you, and some make it easily available. For example, Missouri already posts state employees’ salaries on its Web site http://mapyourtaxes.mo.gov/MAP/Portal/Default.aspx, and Kansas plans to do so later this year on its site about state government financial activity www.kansas.gov/kanview/. Nationwide, a growing number of governments are making public employee salary information searchable.
Isn’t publishing people’s pay awfully personal?
It is personal. That’s one reason there should be compelling reasons for doing it, as noted in the preceding ``Why publish people’s pay?’’ In addition, as public records, the information should be readily available to the public. The salary databases at Info Central do not include personal information such as addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and social security numbers.
Besides being published by governments, salaries of public employees already are published in some other forums. For example, they frequently are noted in news stories about new hires, annual pay raises, budget discussions, negotiations with employee groups and more.
In the private sector, most companies release employees’ pay only for top-level executives, as part of disclosure requirements of publicly-held companies. For information on some of Kansas City’s top executives, check the Top CEO Salary Report grid in the 2007 edition of Star 50.
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