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SallyMe
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"Public" information shouldn't repose in a musty basement file cabinet. It should be organized and presented so that the "public" can find it. "
You got it all wrong - the information reposes on a state-of-the-art computer which does not reside in the basement, and it was organized and presented to you, the newspaper (supposedly the "public") to find.
If you were trying to be metaphoric about where the data reposes - why perpetuate the sterotype that government is far, far behind in the technology field and that it's in disarray?
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Lewis Sinclair
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Judged:
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1
Yes, I agree and we certainly do need a trasparent government. Maybe we can extend it a little and stop officials from using "executive privilege" to prevent scrutiny. But then, maybe someday we'll have a real newspaper too.
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Brent
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Your article states, "The public has a right to know how its money is being spent. That means that the salaries of public employees are and must remain public." I don't disagree that the salaries of public employees must remain public. But you make it sound as though you've provided some kind of public service. The fact is, the salaries were public before you posted your online information, and your database has added nothing of value. If you want to post salary information, it needs to be done in a way that doesn't cause a "firestorm", and doesn't put employees at risk. A simple listing of the job classifications and salaries would have been sufficient, and this article does nothing to explain or correct the problems you've caused by posting employee names on the Internet.
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TSN
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Letter writer Mike Fratto recently called upon legislators to introduce legislation to ban the universal release of public employee data. "Ban release of public employee data" (July 16,2008) Mr. Fratto went on to say the morale of some public employees is low. I wonder how a citizen who has lost their job feels about a public employee who is concerned about their job satisfaction? Said another way, Our unemployment rate is high, but the public employees are not equally feeling the effects of being unemployed when compared to the workers - working for a private company. Instead of defending his colleges, perhaps Mr. Fratto could better serve the readers by helping to stop the widespread practice of public employees from lobbying legislator using state time and equipment to better their wages and compensation packages. On another note, Mr. Fratto could show a little more concern regarding privacy rights of Minnesota tax payers vs. public employees. Mr. Fratto is the Chairman of the Ramsey County Charter Commission and he's failed to stop the unlawful collection of private information including Social Security Numbers committed by various government entities.
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Sally K
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I will cancel my Pioneer Press subscription and so should everyone. Newspapers should publish news-worthy items. There is nothing new or worthy out of creating a searchable database that includes names of hard working people.Put your money to good use! Don't you complain that subscriptions are low and you have to lay off real reporters? Why invest your dollars in this database? It is completely mean-spirited and dangerous. Anyone with access to a MN state employee union manual can see the positions and salaries of government employees. By adding a name you put people at risk. You say that you did not pubish the addresses so nobody is in danger. Tell the truth!You did not publish home addresses because those are NOT public data. If you could you probably would have! You are not doing state employees any favors. Unsafe? you bet. Not everyone is named Jones or Carlson in MN. Home addresses of people with uncommon names can be found quite easily. Watch your garbage cans folks, because when you are found, someone can go get your personal info and open a few credit cards. After all, they pay your salary so they might as well get some cards in your name.
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Dave
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what about non-working people who receive public money? why are those names not put in the paper?
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Ethics
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2
I concur that government employees wages should be public and easily accessible. However, there should be an ethical standard in which these wages are published. I believe ethical standards were compromised when the paper chose to publish this information when the economy is facing a recession. It is easy to blame government for being lazy or needing a shot of adrenaline when there are layoffs and high unemployment rates. Public employees become an easy target for an economic down turn. What would have been like if this was published when the economy was at a high or on an upswing? I personally have felt that my private phone company was in need of a shot of adrenaline. Why are government employees lazy but it is poor customer service in the private sector? Why is it you can blame government for a bad economy and praise private corporations on an economic up turn? So, I put into question or motivation in publishing this information at this time, which in turns has caused me to question your ethics.
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John Q Public Employee
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The salary info is not an attack on public employees, or an unreasonable exercise for the public's right to know. The paper could have done a better job with it, but at least their superficial analysis pointed out some of the context. What is more disturbing to me is the blind hatred and anger generalized by some people against all public employees. Most public employees are honest, capable, concerned about citizens and give full value for their paycheck. They are part of the community, and like the rest of the community have some proportion of fools, gossips, lazy and incompetent workers and a few thieves. Thus will it always be in any organization of humans. Next time you have a surly clerk at WalMart, a slow waiter or read about embezzling bookkeepers, corrupt attorneys or incompetent doctors, will you generalize to all clerks, waiters, etc.? Unless your life is miserable and you need to blame somebody else...probably not. In the meantime, tone down the vitriol from both sides, okay?
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TaxesToPrivate
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A huge amount of public money (also collected as taxes) is channeled through public agencies to private industry. Health Plans, doctors, clinics, hospitals, military suppliers, contractors receive billions of dollars in government money collected with the same force, but their individual salaries and many other important details are not published here. Shouldn't the Pioneer Press be demanding the same level of transparency when money simply flows through government to the private sector as when the services are delivered more directly by the government? The Pioneer Press has more work to do if intends to cast their actions as civic-minded. The editors should be clever enough to know that exposing the individual salaries of unelected officials in this isolated way provides no substance beyond the most vulgar voyeurism. Without being willing to do the (harder) work that it would take to provide meaningful data, and to cover ALL the areas where tax money flows, it looks like the paper has given in to the temptation of publishing low-level info-porn, just because they could.
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Working for a living
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Judged:
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This has been quite a week of the media generating self-referential buzz. Are there no other news stories to report? The New Yorker magazine publishes a cover that has created a firestorm of the media talking about the media. Now locally, the Pioneer Press decides to create a little media hype over publishing public employee salaries. Has the War become mundane? Isn't the upcoming election and RNC convention generating enough ad revenue? Just for a point of reference, I am a public employee and I don't particularly care if people know my salary. I'm very good at my job and I love what I do. I could probably make more money in the private sector but that's okay, too.
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Cane54
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Judged:
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To TSN who says state employees lobby legislators for better benefits on state time - that is absolutely not allowed and results in dismissal if done. We must do that on our own time. And to Sally K - yes we are quitting this paper! We have been thinking of it for a long time but will be doing it now. They haven't done anyone any good with this stupidity. Our jobs are just as insecure as anyone else's. State employees are laid off all the time. I hate when all these people make assumptions and don't bother to check out their allegations. And if someone says we don't have good customer service I say try companies like UPS, etc. I have had nothing but bad customer service from most companies I deal with so don't tell me we are bad. I'll tell you that if we do things like this we don't have a job very long. this paper is just covering all the other stuff in the news that should be covered. But then since the paper is so thin, I guess they just don't have the room. And they don't say how long someone has worked at the level they're at. They may have been at that level for years and won't be getting anything more since they're at the top of their scale. What does this newspaper say about that? Nothing.
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child protection worker
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As a public employee and as a taxpayer I have no problem being accountable to the taxpayers and having salary information public. Publish the salary catagory with the job title. Don't publish my full name and exact wage. It is mean spirited and dangerous to publish full names of police, corrections workers, and child protection/welfare workers! We are generally low paid workers who are doing a very tough and often dangerous job. We have families of our own to protect. Don't make it that much easier to have unscrupulous people we deal with harass us. We are doing jobs many of you have no stomach to do. Perhaps the taxpayers would like to pay for court related costs for OFPs, harassment of many kinds, and identity theft. PP has gone to far- I am discontinuing my subscription.
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Archie Anderson
AOL
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Would Rachael Stassen Berger be so kind to the public she is so concerned about being advised of public expenditures, Please put the public employees aside for a minute and find out for the sheeple where one billion dollars of THE PUBLICS funds that was handed out to non profits with little or no oversight went and what and whom it was spent on?
Public Employees are easy to trash when someone gets an urge to "show the public where the money is going" Lets move on to the big bucks, like the billion dollars of give away funds. why are millions of dollars spent on state computer program purchase's that do not work, purchased from some slick with a basement apartment address
in NY NY.
Why are billions spent out of state when purchases can be made right here in Minnesota?
Why are administrators not hired through the ranks of Minnesota citizens and employees instead of from the NY NY basement address?
Come on Rachael, dig out the department of administration's purchase orders and give the citizens a real thrill
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Judge it!
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