https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/03/06/wyoming-public-school-salaries-finally-posted-online–payrolls-cost-taxpayers-1-billion/#4c061b522f60
Transparency Victory in Wyoming!
It was a three-year fight to open the books on the entire payroll of the Wyoming public schools — and we’ve officially won!
Finally, the salaries of every educator, administrator, staffer, and employee have been posted online.
It was a three year fight to open the books on the entire payroll of the Wyoming public schools. Finally, the salaries of every educator, administrator, and staffer have been posted online.
Starting in 2017, our organization at OpenTheBooks.com filed open records requests with the 48 public school districts. Some districts wanted to charge us fees up to $3,600. Only 18 of the districts produced a responsive record of their payrolls – the rest of the districts arguably violated transparency law.
Enter Tom James a new state senator. He learned that the Superintendent of Public Instruction compiled the records each year. So James filed his request and successfully captured three years of data. Then, our organization requested a copy as well.
“Public school employees are paid by taxpayers and therefore taxpayers get to see where their dollars are going. For the first time in history, I made sure the books were open to the public.”
Hon. Tom James, Wyoming State Senator
The new data shows that there are 16,306 full-time employees making $816.5 million in cash compensation. Adding the cost of benefits such as paid time off and pensions, taxpayer costs are estimated to exceed $1 billion.