(Albuquerque) In an effort to improve government transparency throughout New Mexico, the Rio Grande Foundation has requested and published payroll data for the 32 largest cities throughout New Mexico.
Some cities including Albuquerque and Rio Rancho post payroll information online. However, these were the laudable exceptions as few city websites have a comprehensive listing of payroll data. Find city data here. A few cities demanded nominal payment for the data and one city, Socorro, was unwilling to provide the data at all.
Said Rio Grande Foundation President Paul Gessing of his organization’s role in releasing the data, “The Internet in its current form is now more than 20 years old; it is time for governments at all levels to leverage this inexpensive tool to make data more readily-available to citizens.”
Under New Mexico law, employee salary data is already public information, available on request from the county or city government. Now, thanks to legislation passed during the 2011 legislative session, this and other data must be made available in a format preferred by the requestor.
Responding to the most likely critique of having this information online, Gessing said, “Having salary information online is not a privacy threat. The Rio Grande Foundation has had similar information posted for cities, counties, and institutions of higher education online for years and we have not heard any specific complaints.”
“We at the Rio Grande Foundation believe strongly that transparency and openness are keys to achieving a more limited, fiscally-responsible government. Information on who is hired to do what and how much they are being paid is information that must be available and accessible to the public” said Gessing.
Socorro (refused to comply)
Very informative. Thank you for your work.
I would like to see the same type information for
the County and area public schools.
We are working on this as well. In the process of doing counties now. Public schools later.
How do we access this same information for APS and other public schools?
Now that we have a new Superintendant hand-picking his cronies from San Francisco instead of hiring locally – this should be made transparent as well.
Here is the APS information. They actually put it online.
On behalf of Margaret Hopper of Siver City, NM, I send the following comment:
“My thanks to RGF for the city payroll reports and you for your assistance in sending this. This is far more informative than you imagine. I have wanted this for years.
Further, Grant County seems to have deliberately scrambled the county budgets for many years under its past “manager”. No one else could read the information, not even the commissioners. The manager had to be consulted on everything; think that wasn’t control?
“Don’t stop now. We need this kind of help.”
Margaret Hopper”