Senate posts salaries

The Michigan Senate has posted salaries for all its full-time employees in a searchable database on its website.

No names were posted, though users can find a given employee's title, job location and salary.

The lack of names won't likely do much for office anonymity, however, as the names are relatively easy to figure out. Almost no one working for the Senate has the same title and job location as someone else.

There is only one Secretary of the Senate, for example, and while there is a Chief of Staff in almost every office, Sen. Gretchen Whitmer only has one.

From the AP:

"By making this information easily available, we are taking a proactive approach to releasing information of interest to the citizens of Michigan," the office of Senate Secretary Carol Viventi said in a statement. "The Senate is proud of our work force and believes legislative staff are paid a fair and competitive wage for the work they perform."

The House has not followed in the Senate's footsteps, though a staffer in a senior House GOP office told me yesterday that he was notified that House staff salaries were requested in a Freedom of Information Act request.

As you know, a database of most full-time state workers' salaries is available on the LSJ's website.

Comments

[JRS]

In looking at the list:

What exactly is a "Chief of Staff"
for a Senator and what exactly do
they do? Are they like an office
supervisor or what?

I notice a Senator Gleason is a
cheapstake at $35,000 for their
person while Senator Bishop's
chief gets $106,000.

The average seems to be around $63,000 or so. some higher some lower.

[amac]

They should have posted names along with the job titles and salaries. Then the list would have been as controversial as the list of state workers' salaries posted by the LSJ.

[Michael Motta]

Maybe Senator Bishop's chief knows a thing or two about Senator Bishop that the Senator likes his chief to keep to himself ;)

Okay before anybody gets upset, I totally made that up. I wouldn't know Senator Bishop from the Bishop of Canterbury.

[Michael Motta]

(Nor from the Archbishop of Canterbury)

[BB]

I think you missed the point. Seems to me the Senate is protecting their employees from Identity theft, unlike the LSJ did for the rest of us State Employees. I personally don't think its "relatively easy to figure out" who is who. Sure, the Secretary of the Senate is an easy one, but I for one have NO IDEA what the name of Senator Birkholz's "Committee Clerk" is or Senator Jacobs "Constituent Relations" person is. Maybe an insider snoop like Derek who roams the halls of government, waiting to betray us does, but as an average citizen I don't. To me, I can see what their staff is paid and that's enough. I will watch for openings at the Senate, because they seem to know how to release information the public deserves to have, without endangering their employees. Oh, and kudos to the Judiciary for releasing their salaries in a similar fashion to the Senate. Again, info we deserve without endangering their employees.