Salary histories are kept from the public
Editor’s note: This story — the third in “Keeping Secrets,” a three-part series about the state’s secretive personnel law — was originally published March 16, 2010. The law was changed in August 2010.
A year ago, Altavis Pratt was the grant writer and crime statistician for the State Capitol Police when her position fell victim to budget cuts and questions regarding her duties.
Pratt, who was being paid $38,000 annually, did not leave the agency. Chief Scott Hunter moved her into a lesser position as a dispatcher and continued to pay her the same salary. She now makes $8,000 to $10,000 more than all but the chief dispatcher, in a position the agency had left unfilled for more than a year.
Such personnel moves often escape scrutiny because the state’s personnel law does not allow the public to see an employee’s work history, other than when he or she was first hired. Position changes, rapid salary growth, overtime payments and demotions from prior years can be hidden because the personnel law allows only current information to be released.
It’s a 35-year-old hurdle that no other state appears to have, according to a review of personnel laws in the other 49 states.
“That just strikes me as utterly illogical,” Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, said of North Carolina’s law. “If you can get their salary now, why can’t you get it two years ago? What’s the argument there?”
Actually, few people can cite a specific reason for the secrecy. Representatives for employee and governmental groups can’t explain the need for it.
“By and large, I don’t see a problem with being able to disclose the historical salaries of state employees or the historical nature of what their job titles and duties were,” said Dana Cope, executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina.
‘A lot of turmoil’
But government officials cite the law to deny information. In the case of Pratt, an Office of State Personnel spokeswoman said she could not state what Pratt did before she became a dispatcher.
“Only current position is public,” spokeswoman Margaret Jordan said by e-mail.
Pratt declined comment. Hunter confirmed the move, saying the Department of Administration cut her position because she wasn’t bringing in sufficient grant money. He said the department did not want to punish her financially for taking a lesser position, so she was kept at the same salary.
The result, however, is no money saved from that job cut, as the agency added a sixth dispatcher when it had employed no more than five in the previous four years. And this happened as government officials and lawmakers said they were turning over every rock to save money in a budget crisis.
“There was a lot of turmoil” about Pratt’s move, said Cheryl Nagle, a State Capitol Police officer who retired late last year. “A lot of people got upset.”
Salaries make up the lion’s share of state and local budgets. The state, for example, has more than 290,000 employees on the payroll at state agencies, public schools, universities and community colleges. Denying access to salary histories makes it difficult to track growth in one of the most expensive areas of government.
Tracking changes
Some news organizations, including The News & Observer, have found ways to track salaries by requesting pay data for public employees year after year. That way, pay and position changes can be tracked over time. That’s how The N&O could see what happened with Pratt.
Such tracking has helped uncover controversial salary growth at many institutions, particularly UNC system schools. In October, The News & Observer reported that percentage-wise, the fastest-growing segment of The N.C. School of Science and Mathematics’ budgets over the past five years was administrative costs, including salaries.
The salary of Chancellor Gerald Boarman, who is leaving in July to lead an elite private school in Maryland, had grown 32 percent during that period, from $185,028 in 2004 to $245,000 in 2009.
Also last year, the New Hanover Alcoholic Beverage Control Board initially declined to provide the actual compensation for its staff in response to a request from The Star-News of Wilmington. Eventually the newspaper received the information, and it triggered an avalanche of criticism about the way the state and local boards manage liquor sales.
The New Hanover board’s top two administrators, Billy Williams and his son Bradley, were compensated a combined $390,000 last year. The county later released the Williams’ pay histories, which showed their compensation had risen by 50 percent in four years. The revelations caused all three members of the county’s alcohol board to resign.
Calling it ‘current’
Public officials continue to use the “current” provision within the personnel law to deny salary information critical to the public’s understanding of how government works. Consider this chapter of the long-running investigation into perks obtained by former Gov. Mike Easley and his family:
N.C. State Provost Larry Nielsen stepped down in May, amid scrutiny over his role in hiring Easley’s wife in 2005, and in giving her an 88 percent pay raise three years later. Nielsen would take a six-month sabbatical before returning to the faculty, but NCSU officials declined to say what his pay would be during that period. It was not “current” compensation because the sabbatical hadn’t begun.
Eventually, NCSU released the terms of his transition back to the faculty. They showed that he would make the same $298,700 provost’s salary while on sabbatical, and then receive a series of salary step-downs over three years until he was making the equivalent salary of a senior faculty member.
The deal exceeded what was allowed under UNC system policies. It ultimately helped expose hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted during the past five years on UNC administrators who were supposed to return to faculty jobs but either retired, left for other positions or were forced out by UNC schools.
Even there, the UNC system and some schools initially withheld the names of those who had received these transition packages because they did not take place in the current fiscal year. After further requests from the N&O, UNC System President Erskine Bowles made them public by invoking what is known as the “integrity exemption,” which allows personnel information to become public if an agency’s reputation is at stake. The information helped persuade the UNC Board of Governors to revamp its policies to prevent future abuses.
Changing the personnel law to make employment histories public would seem to be a relatively simple change, given that representatives of interested parties offer little objection. But the last time the state legislature tried, in 2001, it got shot down before it could get out of committee.
A survey of lawmakers and interviews of legislative leaders by The News & Observer last month found some lawmakers who viewed the information as too risky for public consumption. But most said employment histories should be open because the employees serve the public and the public pays them. In interviews, they said they couldn’t understand why the information wasn’t already public.
“If it’s already been a public record, it ought to be a public record,” said Senate Majority Leader Martin Nesbitt, an Asheville Democrat.
How much employment history should be public?
The state’s personnel law allows for the automatic release of current salary and current position, and the date of the most recent job classification to be made public. Should a worker’s employment history with a public entity, including job changes, disciplinary action or commendations, and salary increases or decreases be made public?
Gov. Beverly Perdue: “I believe if the information was once public, it should remain public. It makes no sense to close the book on information that was once available for citizens to see.”
Senate leader Marc Basnight: “The law today is the current salary, but not what they made previously? I do not understand why that would not be public. ... My first blush would be that this is unreasonable but I will find out. I want to listen to why someone would be opposed to that. I can think of no reason.”
House Speaker Joe Hackney: “I’m not prepared to argue it either way, either for it or against it. I understand it’s been that way since 1975.”
Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger: “Yes. The current law distinguishes between employment related and personal information; that distinction should be retained. Personal information should not be subject to disclosure...Additional information should be available so the public will have appropriate context and history about the employee’s current status.”
House Minority Leader Paul Stam: “No. Public employees deserve the same measure of privacy as employees in the private sector. Employees should not be subject to random fishing expeditions by the press or the public. Frankly, it would be nearly impossible to have a consistent manner to record employee’s work history and what would properly be defined as ‘disciplinary action’ or ‘commendation.’
This story was originally published March 16, 2010 at 12:00 AM.