the official blog of the evergreen freedom foundation

In a recent public inquiry email, the following concerns were expressed by a Washington State educator:

“I recently ran across your website when I googled a co-worker’s name hoping a white pages listing would come up.  What came up instead was an excel spreadsheet giving her salary, benefits, etc.  I then found that there was this information for every employee of every school district in Washington State.   I have not given any authorization for this information to be published on the web and I’m wondering what purpose it serves.  In this day and age of identity theft is this really critical information to have out there?    I understand that being a state employee that this info may be public record, but I’d hope it would be a little more difficult to access than doing a simple google search.”

I promise that is the email, verbatim – I couldn’t have made that one up. 

Here was my response:

 “It is true that the salaries of all state employees are public record.  No additional authority (given by individual employees) is required to publish that information.  As for the ease of accessibility, that is exactly the point:  citizens have the right to know exactly how their tax dollars are being spent.  Further, accessibility to that information is paramount for well-educated voters.”

 I find it amusing that those working within the public sector recognize that the terms of employment are public knowledge; they just don’t want it to be that public.