The Sanford Herald published a story on Saturday listing the salaries of many public officials in Lee County who earn more than $100,000 per year.
The story (subscription required) didn’t include any reason for the disclosure of the salaries other than citing it as “a public service.” The story also included the salaries of three Broadway employees who make less than $100,000.
Salaries of public employees are a matter of public record, and public bodies are required to provide them in response to any requests that may be made. That is without dispute. What The Rant disagrees with is randomly reporting those salaries to the public – particularly as a large scale information dump – without some allegation of wrongdoing, context about whether the salaries are significantly higher or lower than what those employees’ peers may earn, or some other reason to make the details of an individual’s employment a matter of public interest. The story didn’t attempt any such justification.
The departments of a handful of the employees whose salaries were disclosed, such as finance or human relations, were included in the story. The vast majority of the employees’ positions or departments, however, were not identified in the story. We feel that detail further clouds any visible reason for the story.
Just as public bodies have a responsibility to disclose public information, journalists have a responsibility to weigh whether publicizing that information for no apparent reason does the public a demonstrable good. We suspect the story had its genesis in the fight over education funding between the Lee County Board of Commissioners and the local school board. But disclosing the salaries of people unrelated to that struggle will do nothing to resolve it. Instead, anybody who picked up the most recent weekend edition of The Herald may conclude there’s a problem that doesn’t exist.
We’ve always said people should read both The Herald and The Rant, and we’ve been more than glad to point out when they’ve done great work. That said, we’re also willing to point out what we see as a misstep. This is one of those times.
I very agree with your stance that publishing salaries in the Sanford Herald without any reason is inappropriate. As a retired employee of Sanford and Lee County I was personally offended that release of salaries, although public information, was not substantiated by any public purpose. The implications are that these employees are being over compensated and/or that public employees should not be paid at such levels. Both are absurd and contribute to views that working for the government is somehow wrong; or that civil servants do not have the skills, experience and responsibility to be correctly compensated. I know many of those listed. I actually hired some and worked closely with most. This is a talented group of people who work very hard and have produced some remarkable success. Shame on the Sanford Herald.
–Bob Bridwell
The Herald has been a crappy newspaper for a very long time. They have had running feuds with the City, County, and Community College over the years that went on for years. The trick with the Herald is to figure out who instigated their detective work. In the past that has usually revealed the who and the why of the axe.
As a government employee, I’m thankful the Herald published this information. The public has a right to know. Cops are making twice the state average. Principals are making four times what you teachers are getting paid. The superintendent has created positions for his buddies and is paying them all six figures. Yet, the government is broke and our school’s have no money.
A few items to note here:
1. The state pays principals and the pay scale is based on performance. Principals making higher amounts have been placed on a higher scale because of high test scores. This is not something set at the local level.
https://www.dpi.nc.gov/documents/fbs/resources/fy25webschedulesupdated7-12-24pdf/download?attachment
2. As I looked back at The Herald article, I can’t find any “created” positions. All of the six figure positions have existed for the last decade, just maybe an adjustment to the title. If anything, I did note one less assistant superintendent in the current administration which I assume would actually be a savings.
3. When you break down the entire Herald article, it appears that the schools have 1% of its entire staff making six figures. The city and county are around 5% each based on the total number of employees.
Thom I agree with your statement. Made up CO titles so superintendent can have his sidekicks while they are making big bucks and teachers are suffering. Teachers are still not caught up to the economy. Definitely do not get paid for what they do and put up with. We surely aren’t seeing any changes with this superintendent. Just saying.
While I appreciate the link to the Herald’s website, I would note that a good number of newspapers post public salary information as a public service. For example, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a website where public salaries can be looked up. In addition to their website, here’s a story they published: https://richmond.com/news/local/government-politics/richmond-henrico-chesterfield-public-salaries-database/article_f7fae702-960a-11ef-837d-176b2d368291.html
The Sanford Herald’s salary story was the top story on its website for a week, and over a week later it’s No. 3. (The Herald’s most popular 10 stories are a feature of its website. Find it on the right by scrolling down.) By 8 a.m. on the day of your editorial, I updated the SH story to include all of the job title information. I didn’t report these originally because I didn’t have all of them.
Clicked the link you provided, paywall prevented me from reading. Thank you for your efforts.