Let’s Take a Look at the Ledger
I got an email from Dave Burris this morning with the press release from the Caesar Rodney Institute telling me about their newest tool. Delaware Spends is an online tool (with cool web 2.0 features) that will help make it easier to see where money is going. Essentially is is an online checkbook ledger with some good search criteria. I took it for a spin to see if I could suss out the savings for the elimination of Gary Pfeiffer’s salary at the Department of Finance.
Between salary and benefits, Mr. Pfeiffer cost us $89,721 so far in 2009. So the savings to the state for him is roughly double that per year. So, 180K down, $879,820,000 to go!
This could be fun, but please search responsibly.
Tags: Delaware Budget
Here’s my thing. My dad and a whole bunch of friends work for the state. It is NOT my business to know what they make as people. This has the potential (and I’ve already seen it with my father) to create a lot of work place tension.
How you ask? my dad just found out he gets paid to do the same amount of work and has more credentials than his co-workers and is getting paid less. He’s pissed. He now knows specifically what his “equals” make, although he’s more qualified.
Here’s the other thing, I actually agree that the people of Delaware have every right to know what the state is paying their employees, but they DO NOT have a right to know the person.
Here’s a better solution that satisfies the public’s curiosity and allows state employees to retain some sense of privacy. They should have either printed EID (Employee ID Numbers) or assigned random numbers to each person (I’m a fan of the later and not the former). Then allow people to search by job description, keyword, salary, department and job title.
At least this way my dad would have known he made less, but wouldn’t have known who was making the most etc. Sure he still would have been upset, but he would be the only one to know, but now ya’ll can look it up and know too (if you knew my dad and the necessary info!) It doesn’t boast well for ones self-confidence nor does it make people want to work harder. In short, it doesn’t make state government more efficient.
Those are my two cents, take ’em or leave ’em. I don’t comment often b/c most of you say what I want to say better, but I couldn’t not speak up on this issue!
Wow, there are 447 people employed for school districts that will make 100k (+or minus a few thousands. I searched for 50k+ so far this year.) this year, and some of the positions seem redundant. We really need to look at condensing districts, and streamlining certain positions.
A couple of 100k plus were the supervisors for buildings and grounds, NCCVT.
Your dad can do what most people do when it comes to bad news, bury his head in the sand. I heard this from someone the other day, “Ignorance is bliss.”
I don’t so much care about my dad, he’s a grown man and will either do as you suggest or find a better paying private job. But my point, which may have been lost, was that his neighbors, daughter, son and friends have NO right to know what he makes personally… but should be able to know what he makes as an employee (ie, no names should be associated with salaries.)
An ID system would be useless. AnFOIA inquiry would get the name anyway. Since my money is going from my pocket to his by way of taxes his name is gonna be on there no matter what. It sucks, but that is how it would have to work to keep people accountable.
can’t credit the fill $180K cause somebodies son got a promotion to fill the vacancy
I know it would come with the FOIA, but CRI could have omitted the names and randomly assigned numbers. You’re still getting the same information, therefore keeping accountability. Obviously, if a search for job title were included, Geek could have gotten the info for Pfeiffer and still made the same conclusions. But those non-political appointees should still have privacy. Just because they “work for you” doesn’t mean you have a right to know the names. Again, I don’t disagree that the salaries etc. be shared, but I have no right to know that my friend John Doe, a Legislative Aide for for the House is making roughly (using Geek’s math from above) $40-50K/year. But I do have a right to know that Random Leg. Aides are making $/year.
ugh, looking at this thing makes me sick. Good old Beau Biden is enjoying his double dipping. If he cared for the state, and the fiscal troubles it’s in, he would only take enough income to supplement his military pay. His military bi-weekly would be somewhere around 5,834, tax free for being in the AOR.
Looks like a work in progress. The search features for the Vendor site don’t seem to be set up properly.
I can’t search on Vendor/Person, because the drop-down list never populates; it just stays stuck on All. And I wouldn’t expect to reasonably be able to load all the vendors and people into a dropdown list anyway, so I don’t know what they were thinking.
The text above the Vendor dropdown says you can enter the name of a vendor, but I don’t see a place to enter a name.
They also reference a “Vendor Tab” which doesn’t exist. Maybe this is an IE-only site? I’m using Firefox.
The “Category of Spending” dropdown list does populate, but with odd categories ranging from the general to the specific (“Acetylene tanks”) to the mysterious “N.O.C” .
The “Department” dropdown list loads up with a list of stuff that includes a few state departments, but mostly odd stuff that isn’t a recognizable DE department, but is really just more categories.
SubAgency dropdown, same problem as Department dropdown.
And then there is a “State” box supposedly for entering the name of the state. I thought this site was for Delaware?
Looks like they re-used some code intended for multiple states. Maybe the database also has data for other states, that is why the dropdown lists have such oddball contents.
OK, I guess the state box is for the vendors’ state…
And the odd contents of the dropdown boxes are probably due to insufficient scrubbing and normalization of the input data, which was probably provided on spreadsheets or text files with inconsistent headings.
If they got this data from DFMS, you’re lucky to get what you have 🙂
If they got this data from DFMS, you’re lucky to get what you have
Which is one reason why there was resistance to calls for a DFMS-based online checkbook.
I have to agree with nooneimportant. While the public has a right to know what is being spent on salaries, they do not have the right to know that Mr. Smith makes $50K. There is probably a less intrusive way to provide this information to the public without invading the privacy of civil servants. As for elected officials – their earnings are fair game (as are the heads of schools).
I know in the Federal government, our names and grades are available to the public, but our salaries + benefits are protected by the Privacy Act (5 CFR 552a). Perhaps we need something like this in Delaware. What I make as a Fed is no one’s business. Same should hold true for the average state civil servant.
For the record, I was not a participant in the creation of this site, and I argued vehemently with those who were to withhold the names of the employees. In fact, if you check our original legislation to put the state checkbook online, that was one of the caveats.
Even though it’s public information, I still feel a little weird knowing that anyone can look up my salary. I’m pretty sure knowing exactly what I make does not do anybody (unless they are telemarketers, but they already know that info) any good.
So when is the CRI going to produce the amounts they pay their employees? How about who funds CRI? How much does Garrett and Lee make? A list of money contributors to the organization, perhaps?
I think full disclosure is essential. A quick perusal of my former Department revealed a few high level employees missing from the payroll, and confirmed some favoritism in the discretionary raises doled out by Directors and Cabinet Secretaries, including the obscene wages paid to Deputy Principal Assistants (these are typically the positions filled by the under qualified, but politically connected). If nothing else, full disclosure may shed enough light on this practice to help keep it in check.
No one is blaming you Dave. At least I’m not. This site is a good idea that was launched incorrectly (at least concerning salaries).
As a former employee of the Department of Education, I saw many positions there that seemed superfluous – now I see the bloated salaries of those superfluous positions. Markell needs to clean that house out! The state could save a huge amount of $$$ by using only essential staff in that department.
what else do you and Burris confer about in the shadows?
Go get an advanced degree in education, then come back and talk about bloated salaries.
what else do you and Burris confer about in the shadows?
In the interest of transparency, in the past month, he has sent me 3 links to stuff (this is the only thing I have posted) and I emailed him offering to buy the domain name “delawarepolitics.net”.
I would guess that he and I have exchanged emails 15 times in the past year, and most are mundane, like “Have you heard anything from person X? I haven’t heard from them in a while. Hope all is well…”
Boooorrrriiinnnngggg. But thanks for asking.
are you starting up a radio show?
Why isn’t New Castle County included?
Caesar Rodney Institute can kiss my ass. A bunch of douche bags if you ask me.
nothing like class