searchable database of employee names and salaries
Last year the website DFWSalaries.com launched and provided a new level of government transparency into public pay that had not been seen in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. The website provides a searchable database of employee names and salaries for individuals working for cities in the D/FW metroplex. This year, the website has been updated with 2010 salaries and provides even greater capability for anybody to investigate employee salaries and track public spend.
By compiling employee salaries into a searchable database, citizens, employees and government watchdogs can now monitor how cities biggest expenses, employee salaries, are spent. The site’s search options set it apart and allow the layman to conduct a thorough evaluation of public pay. An inquiring mind can find out what Dallas pays its Administrative Assistants without having (or with) having a name, and make comparisons across numerous cities. The site also offers the typical salary for the positions, based on the job title. “One caveat to generalizing the job titles, nevertheless, is that just because the jobs might have the exact exact same title, they may not have the same responsibilities across cities within the metroplex area,” the creator said.
Additionally to calculating the average salaries, the website also ranks employees by their placement inside their Placement, Department, City and Metroplex.
For example, a user can search for a particular Fire Captain by their name and see exactly where that individual ranks within his Placement, within the City and inside the metroplex. They can also see how that person’s salary compares against the typical salary for that placement within the metroplex. This type of ranking benefits employees to identify if they are being paid fairly, in comparison to their coworkers.
The site may be met with some opposition, and has been criticized as becoming an invasion of privacy, nevertheless, the website was prepared with open records request which can be obtained by anyone.
The public pay is open record, and city salaries represent taxpayer dollars. DFWSalaries.com simply makes the records more available and allows any individual to review the public pay.
While the site does provide a base line for comparison, it does fall short in providing some info that’s really essential. The website doesn’t address employee performance, or tenure, nor does it present other payments in addition to base spend. The website might be much improved by providing total salaries, which includes overtime and other payments, as its sister website, http://www.sanfranciscosalaries.com has done for San Francisco employees.
In addition towards the DFW Metrpolex, you will find sister websites for Austin, San Francisco and Miami with extra websites for Philadelphia, Denver, D.C., Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Atlanta, underway.