Student journalists have launched a searchable database of University of Alaska employee salaries, a move they say is designed to add transparency to campus spending while student tuition swells.
The effort, led by the Sun Star student newspaper at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, allows the public to search for UA employee salaries by name, pay range and campus location. The database is available at www.uafsunstar.com/salary/index.php. Sun Star editor-in-chief Heather Bryant said it’s part of an effort to spotlight where campus dollars are spent.
She said it’s a particularly relevant discussion because of rapidly rising tuition rates. Tuition rates at UA have doubled since 2001, and a 7 percent increase for undergraduate tuition is planned for the 2012 to 2013 school year.
The database shows an employee’s name, title, department, job status, salary and hire date. Bryant said some other information that could be relevant, such as an employee’s academic credentials, wasn’t available through the records search.
According to the newspaper, $289 million was spent on base salaries for 6,546 positions at UA last fiscal year. The overall UA budget is about $820 million. A database containing the salaries of public employees isn’t a new idea. The Alaska Policy Forum hosts a website at http://publicpayroll.alaskapolicyforum.org with Alaska state employee salaries, and student media groups in the Lower 48 also have unveiled sites with access to employee pay information.
But the decision to launch the database was met with displeasure from some UA employees after the plan was announced last semester. Commenters on the Sun Star website complained the information lacked enough context to be interpreted fairly, and Bryant said she also spoke at a UAF staff council meeting to address concerns about the database. Staff council President Pips Veazey didn’t return phone calls this week to discuss the issue.
The database is a snapshot of salaries from March and April 2011, gathered from about 6,000 public documents given to the Sun Star by the university. The Sun Star staff has spent the past eight months converting those records into searchable form.
UAF spokeswoman Marmian Grimes said officials spoke to Bryant to find out how the data would be used, but made no effort to persuade the Sun Star to keep it private. “There’s value in transparency,” Grimes said. “As much as people might be concerned about it, it gives a realistic picture of what our employees are paid here, and that’s not a bad thing.”
UAF Faculty Senate President Cathy Cahill said her organization hasn’t formally discussed the database, but said she’s wary of the the potential it has for causing workplace friction. Co-workers typically haven’t known each other’s salaries in the past, she said.
“I’d prefer it’s not up, but there’s not much I can do about it,” Cahill said.
She also said the raw numbers don’t necessarily tell the entire story. Many researchers, for example, get a portion of their salaries through outside grant money, and in some cases salaries in the database aren’t shown for an entire 12-month term.
Bryant said she’s sympathetic to employee concerns, and said the Sun Star staff plans to follow up with a series of stories to provide additional context. She said articles about how gender affects pay and the role of adjunct faculty on campus are planned.
“I definitely understand where they’re coming from, and that’s where the reporting part of this comes in,” she said. Bryant said the Sun Star also is working out a few bugs in its system. Names with apostrophes can’t be accessed, and she said the database currently omits anyone with a salary above $300,000. UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers, who is paid $303,527, is the only employee who falls under that category.
Overall, however, Bryant said she views the effort as a success. Although the data is a matter of public record, tracking down the information without such a tool would be tough without a significant amount of time and effort. The database, she said, helps bridge that gap. “In this case, public doesn’t necessarily mean accessible,” Bryant said.