Bloomingdale Councilwoman: Post Salaries Online

The is considering listing the salaries of borough employees on its website.

The discussion was presented at the council’s meeting Tuesday by Councilwoman Linda Shortman, who said she got the idea from neighboring Pompton Lakes, which lists on its site the compensations received by its workers.

Shortman said the benefit of making this information – just the titles, not the names of the individuals who hold those positions – available is that it takes out a step for members of the public. Since that information is already considered public knowledge, anybody can already obtain it by filing an Open Public Records Acts request at Borough Hall.

“People don’t really like to do things like that,” Shortman said. “It’s so much easier to have it out there. It seems to me we’re heading toward transparency in government, and this is not a complicated thing to do.”

In fact, Shortman said she sees this suggestion as an extension of the borough’s various committees putting their agendas and meeting minutes on the website.

Although all council members said they agree with working toward transparency, some questioned this specific method of doing so.

Councilman Ray Yazdi, for instance, said that since the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) already exists, he doesn’t see the benefit in making it easier for the public to obtain this information. Citing a , Yazdi said resident commenters were upset about the high salaries of many of the individuals.

“You only see the salaries [for these government positions], and you don’t see what these people do differently from other towns,” Yazdi said. “People, in general, are unhappy about the way government is set up, about the way we pay our policemen, our teachers and our administrators.”

Instead of running “information that doesn’t benefit anyone,” Yazdi said he would prefer to see more transparency with budget information, including the reasoning behind why certain decisions are made.

Councilwoman Jo-Ann Pituch said she agreed with Shortman that everybody has the right to know about salaries and that “transparency is transparency.” She pointed to Parsippany and other local municipalities, which she said have been working toward transparency for years.

Councilman John D’Amato said comparisons between how much certain positions make in different towns can easily be mucked up if people don’t keep in mind that some borough administrators and other employees might make additional money by taking on various jobs within the municipality.

As an example, Mayor Jonathan Dunleavy said that if people look at the salaries of two town administrators – one who makes $110,000 and one who makes $140,000 – they might think the latter is being overpaid. However, he said it is likely that the second administrator might be making an additional $10,000 as utility director or head of the municipality’s Office of Emergency Management.

“You put a white collar person’s salary up there,” Dunleavy said. “That’s not a true picture.”

Shortman said she has no problem with those clarifications being addressed and spelled out on the website along with the listing of salaries.

Dunleavy said he was also curious as to where the council should draw the line on transparency.

“Someone can [file an Open Public Records Acts request for] our emails, so why not just post all of them on the website to save the person having to come here and do so?” Dunleavy said.

Shortman suggested that the council will become more aware of that line as time goes on and the borough does a better job of taking advantage of the website’s resources and possibilities.

As an alternative, Dunleavy suggested that the borough’s salary ordinance, which lists compensation ranges for each position, be posted. However, Shortman said she would still like the exact salary to be listed.

“I’d like to follow what Pompton Lakes did, which doesn’t seem complicated or hard,” she said.

Shortman said she hopes to take action on this issue at the council’s next meeting but would like the borough’s attorney to look into it and give any relevant legal advice.