Should public employee salaries be open to inspection under the open records law?

The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, posed this question in a recent tweet: Why are government employee salaries available to the public under open government laws?

The Brechner Center's "partial answer?" "Because every once in a while, journalists find out that police officers with checkered backgrounds are being paid over $200k."

The tweet links to a Baltimore Sun article identifying the highest paid employee in Baltimore city government, a police sergeant whose compensation, with overtime, exceeded $260,000 in 2018.

The commissioner of police publicly criticized the same sergeant for "tarnishing the badge" of his fellow officers following the sergeant's suspension for false imprisonment, assault, and misconduct stemming from the May 30 arrest of a bystander "who criticized officers' tactics as they detained another man."

In Kentucky, its not just the $375,000 salary paid to the state's chief technology officer, Charles Grindle, that raises eyebrows.

Six months ago, Joe Sonka reported on Louisvillle Metro Government's expenditure of $35 million in overtime compensation in 2018. He identified a Metro Corrections sergeant who earned a total of $187,922 in that year, based on an annual salary of $55,000 and overtime compensation exceeding $129,000. The Corrections sergeant thus became the second highest paid Metro Government employee, "just below Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Steve Conrad."

https://insiderlouisville.com/government/local/metro-government-ran-up-…

Sonka's article goes on to explain the jail overcrowding crisis that has precipitated massive overtime payments and offers no criticism of the Metro Corrections employee, other than to note that, by virtue of his seniority and the preference for senior employees in offering overtime, the employee has been able to maximize his salary under the existing union contract.

In 1990, the attorney general recognized, "Amounts paid from public coffers are perhaps uniquely of public concern. We believe the public is entitled to inspect records documenting exact amounts paid from public monies, to include amounts paid for items, or for salaries, etc. Specific sums paid in salary from public monies . . . fall within such purview."

A public employees' privacy interest in his or her salary, such as it is, is outweighed by the public right to know that the employee is fairly compensated under a rational pay structure based on qualifications and experience and not on political favoritism or worse.

Let's not forget:

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/23/ethics-c…