County Commissioner taking some flak

County Payroll data is online. KRQE did a story on it, but I can't
find a link on their site. A link is provided on Errors of Enchantment, link. Bernalillo County Commissioner Wayne Johnson, link, supports the publication. He's taking some flak, wikilink.

Someone else first observed;

If you're taking flak, you must be over the target.

Johnson must be over the target.

As county taxpayers, we employ
a number of politicians and public
servants. Johnson believes we have
a right, not only to know how much
we are paying our employees, but
that it should be easy to find out.

The information is actually already
available. It is a public record, but
you have to be willing to do the
'request for public records dance', and pay whatever the County charges for copies (the law allows up to one dollar a page).

Why aren't all public records online in a searchable data base;
except to make it difficult to view the record of the spending of
our power and our resources?


Push back is coming from
Commissioner Art De La Cruz,
link. He admitted that the
County is already fielding
inquiries; people want to know
why other county employees are
making more money than they.

De La Cruz blew off their concerns, explaining that they are simply
ignorant that salaries depend in part on training and experience. He side-stepped the manifest truth; in Bernalillo County Government, salaries also depend on who you know; cronyism, nepotism, and political payoffs.

The single greatest resources in the fight against public corruption and incompetence in public service, are public servants and vigilant citizens. Johnson would empower them with knowledge
and De La Cruz would keep them ignorant.

Kudos to Johnson for his efforts to make transparency easy.




Johnson photo Mark BralleyDe La Cruz photo County Website