Public employee salary

From Sunshine Review

Jump to: navigation, search
Portal:Show Me The Spending
National Taxpayers Union
Transparency in your state
Public employee salary
States with spending online
Collaborative transparency projects
Model transparency legislation
#statebooks on Twitter
SMTS on Twitter
Action center
Sign up for e-updates
Take action

Contents

Do you have information about government employee salaries in your state or region? Click here to register for a free tutorial so you can add the information to www.showmethespending.com.

Public employee salary information is provided by some state government transparency websites, such as Missouri's Accountability Portal. Some states, however, do not provide such information, even if a spending database is already in place. Such information is important to have, given the large salaries that many government employees receive.

Although the state itself may not provide employee information, some private organizations, such as newspapers or think-tanks, do make this information available. For example, the Asbury Park Press provides employee data for New Jersey.

November's Collaborative transparency project is to collect state employee salary information and make it available on this page. Each state page has a section entitled "Public employee salary information." Before you begin to hunt for a state's employee salary information, visit that state's page to see if there is any information available yet. Likewise, if you find salary information elsewhere, feel free to list it on the appropriate state page, not just on the list of states below.

This link provides a listing of state salary information. Help this collaborative project move forward by adding links from that link to each of the states below that still lack information.

[edit] Salary impact on state budgets

State and local governments employ some 20 million people nationwide. Employee compensation costs represent the largest set of expenditures in every state budget. Analyzing the fiscal dynamics of the civil service system reveals some of the most significant constraints and opportunities legislators confront in balancing state budgets.

Total state expenditures exceeded $2.2 trillion last year, of which wages and benefits amounted to $1.1 trillion.[1] Consequently, budgeting decisions related to at least 50 percent of all state budgets are driven by the wage provisions of civil service contracts and funding obligations for state workers’ health care and pension plans.

Labor costs also constitute a sizable proportion of private-sector business costs. But the average wages and benefits provided to public sector employees far exceed the rates paid by private employers. For example, the average hourly wage of public employees last year—$39.66—was 45 percent more than the average hourly wage of $27.42 paid in the private sector.[1]

States fulfill health care and pension obligations through direct contributions as well as investment earnings on those contributions. At its most fundamental, the formula for sustainability of health care and pension funds is: Contributions + Investments = Benefits + Expenses.

States’ recent investment losses, which exceeded $800 billion in 2008, have worsened the budgetary pressures of pension obligations. For example, the state of Illinois was forced to borrow $3.5 billion to meet its pension obligations, thereby incurring tens of millions of dollars in additional debt service costs. Estimates peg the total unfunded liabilities of state and local pension plans between $1 trillion and $3 trillion.[2]

Health care obligations likewise are sapping state budgets. Unlike the private sector, state and local governments have largely adopted “defined benefit” plans, under which specific types of services are assured. (In 2009, for example, defined benefit plans were provided to 84 percent of state and local workers compared to 21 percent of private-sector employees.[3]) The costs of defined benefit plans escalate annually. In contrast, “defined contribution” plans provide a fixed payment for pensions and thus in fully funding pensions. Moreover, public employees contribute far less to their health care coverage compared to workers in the private sector.

Demographics also are exacerbating the budgetary burden of the public-sector workforce. Current retirees leave work at an earlier age and live longer, thus drawing substantially more retiree health care and pension benefits than their predecessors.

[edit] Alabama

Click here for salary information on Alabama's Directors and Heads of Departments.

Here is a directory on Alabama's state employees.

[edit] Alaska

Employee Directory for the state of Alaska.

A listing of the Alaska State payroll from January 2009 is posted here.

[edit] Arizona

Information about Arizona's state employee salaries is available here, including university salaries.

[edit] Arkansas

  • Arkansas Online in association with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette has published an online database of all Arkansas government employees were were paid $200,000 or more in 2007.[4]
  • The Association of Arkansas Counties has compiled a 2008 salary survey of county government employees that shows that salaries of all the major county employees in all 75 counties in the state.[5]

[edit] California

The Los Angeles Daily News published this study of LA city employees salaries: SOARING $ALARIES: A TWO-PART SERIES, and offer this database of city employee pay. The Daily News also posted this Los Angeles Unified School District Salaries database.

The Sacramento Bee provides this Search for a state worker's salary database for 2007/2008.

[edit] Colorado

The Denver Post has a searchable database of Colorado State Employees, along with employees of many of the State Universities.

The Colorado Association of Public Employees brought a bill to Assistant Majority Leader Sen. Lois Tochtrop seeking to exempt the records of particular employees' pay, and only permit access to aggregated salary information. Tochtrop is sponsoring the bill, known as Senate Bill 49. [6]

[edit] Connecticut

  • Connecticut's state employee directory is available here.
  • A listing of the Connecticut state payroll from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Delaware

Information about Delaware state employees is limited. However, you may find information here about certain teachers who at some point were paid more than $100,000 annually.

Additionally, click here for information on salaries paid to employees of the Delaware Psychiatric Center.

[edit] District of Columbia

  • A listing of the D.C. government payroll from December 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Florida

  • A listing of the Florida State payroll from 2008 is posted on here.

[edit] Georgia

  • New governmental website Open Georgia is a gateway for obtaining information about how the State of Georgia spends tax dollars, and includes payroll information.

[edit] Hawaii

[edit] Idaho

  • The Idaho Freedom Foundation maintains a database of state employee salaries as well as salaries from cities, counties and school districts. It can be accessed here.
  • A listing of the Idaho state payroll from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Illinois

  • The Better Government Association offers this searchable database of selected public payrolls. The BGA database includes salaries of employees of the State of Illinois, the City of Chicago, Cook County, Chicago Housing Authority, Chicago Park District, Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Transit Authority, City Colleges of Chicago, the City of Aurora, the City of Berwyn, the City of Naperville, the City of Rockford, the City of Westmont, Cook County Forest Preserve District, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, and the (Chicago) Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.
  • A 2008-2009 list of the salaries of employees of the University of Illinois is posted here. Salaries for the other eight state universities in Illinois (NIU, SIU, SEIU, GSU, CSU, EIU, NEIU, and WIU) from 2008 are posted here.
  • A listing of the employees in the Illinois state executive branch from 2008 is posted here.
  • A listing of the employees of the City of Chicago from March 2009 is posted here.
  • A listing of the employees and of Cook County along with their salaries is hosted by Tony Peraica, an elected county official (currently Cook County Commissioner), at cookemployees.com.

[edit] Indiana

Thanks to www.indystar.com, citizens have a public employee salary database available to them, found at this link.

Salaries of Purdue University employees are updated annually at High Ed Salaries.

The Better Government Association offers this database of selected public payrolls. The BGA database includes salaries of employees of the State of Indiana, the Indiana Inspector General, and the Indiana State Police.

[edit] Iowa

The Des Moines Register provides this searchable database for the 2005 fiscal year: Iowa State Salary Database.

Additionally, the Department of Administrative Services posts some salary data here.

[edit] Kansas

The Kansas City Star maintains a searchable database of state employee information for the year 2007. Access it here.

Kanview, the state government spending site, is by law required to include "salaries and wages including, but not limited to, compensation paid to individual employees of state agencies" and has done so since September 2009.

[edit] Kentucky

Kentucky's Open Door now provides salary information.

The Louisville Courier-Journal provides state employee salary information here.

The Herald Leader provides this database of salaries of state employees, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, and the University of Kentucky for the year 2006: Kentucky State Salary Database.

[edit] Louisiana

See also: Louisiana state employee salaries

[edit] Maine

  • www.maineopengov.org provides state salary information. Users can search by first name, last name, agency, department, subdepartment, position, pay year, and wage range.
  • A listing of the Maine State payroll from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Maryland

  • A listing of the Maryland state payroll from 2008 is posted here

[edit] Massachusetts

The Boston Herald has this list of state payroll information: Massachusetts 2009 State Employee Payroll

The Boston Globe found in August 2008 that bonuses boost council staff pay.

[edit] Michigan

LSJ.com, a Michigan newspaper, offers this resource for searching public payrolls: State of Michigan salary search.

Another Michigan news source, MLive.com, has done an extensive series of articles about public school instructor's pay which includes salary databases. See the whole Teacher Pay series here.

University of Michigan employees' salaries are updated annually at High Ed Salaries.

[edit] Minnesota

  • The Minnesota Transparency and Accountability Project has provided some information about government employee salaries here.
  • A listing of the Minnesota state payroll from 2009 is posted here.

[edit] Mississippi

State of Mississippi Management and Reporting System shows information on the State Budget, State Property, Revenues, Vendors, and State Employees.

[edit] Missouri

The Missouri Accountability Portal provides information about state employees pay. Users can view pay information about the employees of the State of Missouri by their Agency of employment, Position Title or Employee Name. The provides gross pay amounts by the last pay cycle and year to date.

The Better Government Association offers this database of selected public payrolls. The BGA database includes salaries of employees of the State of Missouri.

[edit] Montana

The Montana state employee directory is available here.

  • A listing of the Montana state payroll from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Nebraska

  • An overview of state spending is provided in the Nebraska Personnel Almanac, published annually by the Nebraska Department of Administrative services. The report gives overall spending, workforce size and geographic distribution, and salaries of the top executives. Nebraska Library Commission - page on Personnel Almanac.
  • The state also publishes the personnel rosters of the universities in the University of Nebraska system here.

[edit] Nevada

  • A listing of the Nevada state payroll from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] New Hampshire

The 2008 municipal wage, salary and benefit data is available here http://www.nhmunicipal.org/LGCWebSite/HumanResources/wage_salary_benefits.htm

The state has a lot of information in its Human Resources site here http://admin.state.nh.us/hr/ but it’s not neatly arranged in intelligible table suitable for posting.

If anyone would like to help with that task, just contact the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers.

[edit] New Jersey

  • The Asbury Park Press provides employee data for New Jersey, and the Rutgers-Newark Observer has salary data for employees of Rutgers-Newark.

[edit] New Mexico

  • The Albuquerque Journal has several lists of the salaries of top state officials on their Watchdog resources page.
  • A listing of the New Mexico state payroll from 2009 is posted here

[edit] New York

  • The New York State payroll database from January 2009 is posted here.
  • A great resource is See Through NY, a new website offering "New Yorkers a clearer view of how their state and local tax dollars are spent."

[edit] North Carolina

  • Salaries for N.C. state employees and state university employees are available in a database from The Charlotte Observer.
  • Triangle.com has a database of state employee salary information that is accurate as of September 15, 2008.

[edit] North Dakota

  • www.sunshineonschools.org has valuable financial information about the state's education system.
  • A listing of the North Dakota state payroll from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Ohio

  • The Buckeye Institute has also provided information on certain salaries received by Ohio State University employees. The database is available here.
  • Salary 2005 data on certain state employees is available here.
  • A listing of the Ohio state payroll from 2009 is posted here.

[edit] Oklahoma

State employee salary information is available at Oklahoma OpenBooks.

Information about Oklahoma's state employee salaries, current as of July 2008, is available here, thanks to the work of www.tulsaworld.com.

[edit] Oregon

The Statesmen Journal has a database of state employee salary information available here.

[edit] Pennsylvania

  • The Altoona Mirror did a survey of public school superintendents and have created an online database of the contracts available here.
  • A listing of the Pennsylvania state payroll from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Rhode Island

  • The Ocean State Policy Research Institute has posted the second year of statewide payroll data on the Transparency Train Web portal [1] . Each city, town and school district payroll is also online.
  • A listing of the Rhode Island state payroll from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] South Carolina

Information about South Carolina employees who earn less than $50,000 per year is limited, by statute, to figures that are rounded.

The State publishes a database of South Carolina government employee salary information. Users can search by a partial name, a partial agency name, or all employees in an agency. It also has handy lists of employees earning more than $150,000 and $100,000, along with the top 5 highest-paid employees by agency.

[edit] South Dakota

The Argus Leader in South Dakota is providing this Interactive State Salaries database. It is searchable and current as of June 2007.

[edit] Tennessee

The Bristol Herald Courier performed a salary survey of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee, and published the results here.

The "Open Government for the State of Tennessee" transparency site provides a searchable database of state employees' salaries.

[edit] Texas

  • A listing of the Texas state payroll from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Utah

The Salt Lake Tribune is building up a database of state employee salaries here.

[edit] Vermont

The Burlington Free Press provides this State of Vermont Employee Wages Database.

[edit] Virginia

The Bristol Herald Courier performed a salary survey of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee, and published the results here.

Every year the Mace and Crown, the student newspaper at Old Dominion University, publishes salaries of administrative and faculty employees at ODU. As of October 2008, the latest set of data (March 2008) is available at this website in PDF, Excel, and Text format. Typically when the Mace comes out with new figures, it is posted on the Mace website at maceandcrown.com.

[edit] Washington

One man by the name of Louis Bloom has assembled (via FOIA) a very thorough listing of 2007 Washington State Employees, Job Title and Salaries. He also has lists from 1996-2007, but has declined to post anything since 2007.

[edit] West Virginia

The Herald Dispatch has this WV State Employees Pay Database.

[edit] Wisconsin

The Journal Sentinel has made public employee salary information available.

A list of salaries of Wisconsin state employees from 2008 is posted here.

[edit] Wyoming

[edit] Federal

Legistorm.com provides information on Congressional staff salaries. Users can seach by staffer name, Senator/Representative, committee, leadership office, administrative office, or state.

Asbury Park Press provides a database of federal government employee salaries, searchabe by name, agency, job title, or location. The results show the adjusted base salary and any merit award. Employees involved in security work, the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, nuclear materials, IRS, and jobs essential to national security are excluded. The list contains most executive branch employees but does not cover the White House, Congress, the Postal Service, and independent agencies and commissions.

The Federal Judicial Center has a list of federal judicial salaries dated from 1789 here.

[edit] Additional Resources

[edit] References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 US Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 6.2D. Compensation of Employees by Industry, August 20, 2009
  2. ↑ Government Accountability Office, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT RETIREE HEALTH BENEFITS, November 2009
  3. ↑ American Economic Association (AEA), WILL PUBLIC SECTOR RETIREE HEALTH BENEFIT PLANS SURVIVE? ECONOMIC AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF UNFUNDED LIABILITIES, January 2009
  4. ↑ Database of Arkansas government employees paid more than $200,000 in 2007
  5. ↑ 2008 salary survey of county employees in Arkansas
  6. ↑ CORA change would mask employee pay, Politics West, January 8, 2009
v • d • e
State Government Salary
Retrieved from "http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Public_employee_salary"