School salaries: Why name names?

The annual posting of public salaries has become almost routine after six years,  but every time there are questions about why the Observer does it.

Salaries paid with tax dollars are public record under North Carolina law.  The Observer started requesting and publishing salaries from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,  the city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County to get a handle on how public money is spent.

If you follow the spring budget discussions,  you know numbers can be slippery.  Jobs cut from one category can quietly pop up somewhere else.  Leaders always talk about reducing bureaucracy and cutting costs,  but sometimes a look at who's making what and how it changes over the years tells a different story.

I've used payroll data to analyze staffing cuts and increases,  gauge principal and teacher turnover and look at how CMS compares with other government bodies on executive salaries. Few argue with that kind of reporting.  But some wonder why we make the salaries of rank-and-file government workers available to anyone with a computer and curiosity.

For one thing,  public scrutiny increases the chance that questionable hiring arrangements will be revealed  (think former First Lady Mary Easley's lucrative job at N.C. State University).  It also allows people to do a reality check when false rumors circulate  (for instance,  the persistent buzz that former Superintendent Peter Gorman was giving his wife a CMS paycheck,  when she held a high-profile volunteer post with the district's Parent University).

The Observer isn't out to embarrass anyone,  or to argue that any group of public employees deserves a raise or a cut.  We do want to help readers make informed decisions about how their money is spent.  Time after time,  I've seen people who yawn at an abstract discussion of educator pay get intensely engaged when they realize how it affects individuals they know.

A low salary in public education reflects a fiscal and policy decision,  not an individual shortcoming.  Pay scales are based on credentials and experience,  not performance ratings.  While a bonus represents a judgment  --  or hope  --  that the recipient has done valuable work,  the absence of a bonus means nothing.  Bonuses come from a hodgepodge of incentive programs,  most of them temporary and targeting a limited number of schools. Many excellent educators aren't eligible.

The Observer's data center now includes salaries not only from CMS,  Charlotte and Mecklenburg,  but for state government,  the university system and counties surrounding Charlotte. Those lists get tens of thousands of views.  There's no way of knowing who's doing research and who's just being nosy,  but that's the nature of public information. And it's the nature of journalists to trust that shining a light on public business is ultimately a good thing.