I am beside myself at the audacity of The Examiner to have a link to an excel file with the salary information of Howard County Government employees. I understand that publishing this information is perfectly legal under the Maryland Public Information Act and blah blah blah. I agree that the salaries of any elected official, as well as the salaries of any appointee of an elected official, should be public knowledge.
But what interest is it of the general public how much the guy filling pot holes in the road is making? What interest of the public how much Officer Smith is making? I mean they even included the names of the employees for goodness sakes. Any citizen could easily do a google search for all of the female Howard County Police Officers and locate a picture of them to make sure the hooker they pick up tonight is not an undercover cop. Not that there is anything wrong with picking up hookers.
The fact that these employees are paid with tax dollars is irrelevant. If I own stock in XYX Company, and I went to the corporate headquarters of XYZ and announced that I was a stockholder and then demanded to know the salary of the Junior Accountant, they would justifiably tell me to go fly a kite. Public Information Act aside, the County government should be no different.
I am looking forward to the day when The Examiner publishes the salary information of its employees. But I won’t hold my breath.
1 comments:
Amen. I think releasing the information-minus the names- is a fair compromise. I still don't understand the need to know what the secretaries at Rec and Parks make, but hey, PIA and all.
Listing the position, dept, level, and compensation should be plenty. Any more is a gross abuse of the PIA request and compromises privacy.
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