Brown Comes Through
As noted in today’s News, Mayor Byron Brown has come through on one of the promises he made in his last State of the City address. He’s posted the salaries of all city employees—except those who work for BURA, BERC, BMHA, and the Buffalo Public Schools.
Here’s the list of names, titles, and salaries the mayor posted.
Wish us good luck getting similar information out of BMHA and Buffalo Public Schools.
Now let’s look forward to that poverty plan Brown promised in the same speech.
And for the record, I will repeat my positions: I think most of the city’s municipal workers are compensated fairly or underpaid. I certainly don’t think teachers make enough. I think the BPD got a raw deal from the Masiello administration and the control board, and the Brown administration continues to stick it to them. I think overtime for firefighters is not excessive, given understaffing of that department. I’m generally pro-union. I’m emphatically pro-government.
But public records are public records, and I believe in transparency of government above all.
Potentially related posts (automatically generated):
The next step in this investigation is to match the names of employees to membership in political organizations, political contributions and candidacy for the county committee. The former is tough, but the latter two should be quite doable. Nice to link employment status to political contributions and activities.
Comment by Peter A Reese — April 18, 2009 @ 11:01 am
Most of the firefighters and policemen make $50-$70,000 per year (before overtime). That is not that much to run into a burning building or fight crime in an increasingly violent city.
I don’t think many people on the list are overpaid. Good for Brown. He is doing something right here
Comment by Scott — April 19, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
After reviewing the old list from 2007 I noticed 17 Common Council interns with the last name of Brown that do not appear on the list just published. What could possibly be an explanation for this?
Comment by Mike — April 20, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
BERC BURA are “shadow” governments of this idiotic administration, so it’s transparency with a lot of smoke and mirrors….same old song and dance. Just like at CitiStat, no one is allowed to address any real issues, like gang violence or crime, there is instruction to only speak with positive spin. Sometimes, you have to look at the infection to treat the wound, not ignore it so it festers such as Brown & Co. has been doing….It’s an insult.
Comment by james — April 21, 2009 @ 8:26 pm