from Dean Dexter:
The Empire Center for New York State Policy has loaded the salaries of all NY state employees on the web…
For years all state department head salaries were published by name in the Red Book every biennium, but that ceased in the 1970’s…only the names appear (commissioner, deputiy commissioner, etc.). What a great idea it would be to set up a website dedicated to New Hampshire public salaries like this one. Unfortunately, however, due to the immense resources required to do it for all public workers (town, city, county state) it might be difficult, at first, to do here. Still, a good start could be to put up a website for state department heads in the spirit of the old Red Books…
It also might be a worthy project for local taxpayers groups and activists to put up such websites in their locales: town by town, city by city…
The importance, of course, is to keep it current…
Here’s a story about the new New York site:
http://www.govtech.com/gt/383701
Here’s the site itself:
http://www.seethroughny.net/
[Ed. note] Of course, regular readers know that in our little corner of the universe, this is being tried at the county and at the town level— and is actually happening in some places here in the state. Several towns, such as Loudon still print them in the annual report, and elsewhere, like in Dover, there are websites much like Dean notes above. It has been said that the "transparency movement is sweeping the country." Perhaps this is further evidence of that. Thanks Dean…
Dean Dexter has long been active in local and state politics, having served in various elected positions. Visit his website, NHCommentary.com.