By State law, payroll information is considered public information. We at the Rio Grande Foundation have been working under this law to provide to the public payroll information for New Mexico’s largest cities, all counties, the largest school districts, and universities.
Unfortunately, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) doesn’t seem to like transparency and is suing Gov. Martinez for placing the payroll for state workers on the Sunshine Portal. The good news? For starters, this action makes AFSCME look out of touch. The better news? Regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit, payroll records for all state employees will remain online because I have sent the following request for public records to the State Personnel Office and the Rio Grande Foundation will be posting the records on our website as soon as we get them.
This is a formal request under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. I wish to obtain electronic copies of the employee name, department, title, rate, and annual salary of all employees of the State of New Mexico for 2012. I request this information to be sent in an electronic format, preferably a pdf or excel spreadsheet to me at info@riograndefoundation.org.
If the file is too large to be emailed, I can provide a USB drive for copying electronic records. Please notify me when the records are available for inspection. I can be reached by phone at (505) 264-6090. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
This is ironic! The telephone company I worked for in Chicago was required to report salaries above a certain level to the regulatory commission. Since this was a public record, the union obtained the information and published it in the union newspaper.
So a union wants to be able to break the law and keep public information private? Nothing new there. Unions are corrupt organizations that will do anything to keep their crimes secret.