Posts Tagged ‘transparency’
Salary database serves envy and ego, not common good
I’m generally in favor of transparency in government, but I’m not sure that posting a publicly searchable salary database of all Tennessee state government employees is wise. I understand and support the notion that the citizenry ought to know how public money is spent, but I’m not sure that identifying individual employees by name serves that purpose efficiently. I’d rather see the payroll divided by department or see employees listed anonymously. It seems to me that this kind of database serves envy and ego more than it does good government and civic responsibility. That’s a shame.
Tags: media, privacy, public policy, state government, tennessee, the tennessean, transparency
