The Citizen Editorial - "I pay Your salary"
I LIKE this idea that was in today's (Thursday, 8/16) Citizen editorial (yes, I am still catching up):
"I pay your salary" is a declaration indignant taxpayers are known to say to government employees who appear to be unresponsive or indifferent to a public concern.
But finding out what that salary is can too often be a frustrating experience, fraught with annoying red tape at the very least or bureaucratic stonewalling at worse.
So it is especially refreshing to learn that there is at least one community in this state which has chosen to act on its own initiative not only to make its employees' salaries readily available, but to do so by posting them on the town's Website.
The town we are referring to is Durham.
So much so, I did it here for both the Town and SAU salary lists. And will do so again this year unless the Town and the SAU do it themselves and leave up the info all year. Both entities have web sites that would easily accommodate putting up, in HTML form for online or EXCEL format for analysis, the information on where the majority of our taxes go – salaries and benefits.
You know that it can be easy – after all, both the Town and the SAU provided the information to me upon request. Rather simple and done quite quickly.
Durham provides the salary, overtime pay, insurance (healthcare) buyout, merit pay, and longevity pay. I would add, as appropriate, stipend pay, retirement pay, and taxes paid on behalf of each employee.
And for those that are under contract (as most of the SAU seems to be), an additional posting of the start and end date of that contract plus any part of “golden parachute” arrangements / reimbursements for any unfulfilled contract conditions.
Again, as the Citizen editorial states - “I pay your salary”. We just want to see the total of what that salary costs us....
