Web site opens door to a wealth of data on state government spending
ALBANY — Want to find out the names of 60 University at Buffalo employees earning more than Gov. David A. Paterson, who pulls down $179,000 a year?
Ever wonder how much those state road workers filling potholes are paid?
Confused about decisions at your local school?
Want to find out who the barons of pork are in the State Legislature? — and the beneficiaries of the annual giveaway process?
Then head to the most comprehensive Web site tracking government spending in New York — www.SeeThroughNY.net — for a look at information deemed by law to be public but never made easy for the public to obtain. Until now. The new site, launched Thursday by the Empire Center for New York State Policy, will satisfy any government watcher’s dream of finding out how billions in taxpayer money is spent every year. And its operators say the site will grow even larger, to include information governments have made deliberately difficult for the public to obtain.
Praised by government watchdog groups, the Empire Center’s Web site includes the entire payroll — more than 263,000 names — of workers in the state’s executive branch, Legislature and judiciary. For now, the salary information shows only base pay, excluding factors such as overtime and retroactive pay hikes.
Besides adding those missing pieces about government paychecks, the Empire Center is also working on adding salary information for workers in local government and public authorities. The massive effort includes updates on salary information every six months.
The site allows users to search by name, agency or branch of government.
The site also offers a rare glimpse into the world of public school contracts, allowing users to download teacher union contracts for all but a few of the state’s 700 districts. The Empire Center is threatening legal action against the few districts that did not comply with a freedom of information request for these contracts; all districts in Western New York have released their contract documents.
Also included are the employment contracts of every school superintendent in the state.
As for the Legislature, the site includes the operating expenses of both houses. Although the information is published by the Legislature in book form every six months, it is hardly a best seller among the public. The Web site allows users to search and sort information, for example, to determine how much each legislator spends on travel, mailings or leases for district offices.
The site also includes pork barrel spending for all 212 state lawmakers.
“This information appropriately belongs to everybody,” said E. J. Mc- Mahon, director of the Empire Center, who pointed out that some of the information, such as teacher union contracts, is not even maintained in one central place by the state Education Department.
The site encountered an informational traffic jam Thursday afternoon — possibly the result of an initial rush of more than 50,000 hits in the site’s first couple hours, according to its operators.
The new site was praised by organizations including the Business Council of New York State, the New York Public Interest Research Group and the Americans for Tax Reform.
Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, said the site “places sunlight” on areas of government that the public has a right to see firsthand.
“To get an array of public information on one Web site is fabulous,” he said.
“People want to know, especially in hard economic times, how their money is being spent and that’s what this site is all about,” Freeman said.
The Empire Center is a project of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank that has been critical of the state’s spending and taxing.
McMahon said the Web site is not biased but conceded New Yorkers “may feel more fiscally conservative after looking at this information.”
