YOU WOULD THINK a school district readily knows its A-B-C’s.
Not the Des Moines Public Schools — at least not when informing the public what its 6,600 employees were paid during the academic year that ended June 30.
Yes, grade school teachers still call roll in alphabetical order. And next spring’s high school graduates will walk across the stage as their names are announced, starting with the A’s and moving through to the Z’s.
But when publishing a list of its employees last month and how much taxpayers paid each one, the Des Moines Public Schools’ alphabet started with Tiara S. Ziegler. Next was Pia Marcell Stites, and the list continued in an anything-but-organized manner.
Was this an attempt to hide names by randomness and make it difficult to compare salaries? Or was this the result of a brain freeze, much as when the school board hired Ian Roberts as superintendent without first doing a comprehensive background check and then fired him soon after he was arrested on federal immigration and gun charges?
A LONGSTANDING IOWA LAW requires public school districts to publish a list of their employees and wages each year. Des Moines complied with that law on July 20, taking up six full pages with an official notice in The Des Moines Register.
The publication requirement is simple. Lawmakers wanted every district to inform their residents who is being paid and how much each received. This is a basic principle of accountable government.
So what does it say about the Des Moines district’s commitment to transparency when it puts the names in willy-nilly order? Taxpayers paid the $5,126 cost for publication of this notice.
Technically, perhaps, the district can say it met the letter of the compensation-disclosure law. The information is there. The salaries are public. Mission accomplished.
But transparency should not be a game of technicalities.
Randomizing thousands of names may satisfy a narrow interpretation of disclosure. But the way Des Moines did this undermines the purpose of the requirement and invites the public to distrust the district’s commitment to transparency and accountability.
If citizen activists, journalists, watchdog groups and curious taxpayers must sift through a vast maze of names simply to determine how much certain employees were paid, Des Moines is guilty of placing an unnecessary obstacle between the public and the information people have a right to see and evaluate.
Few government expenditures are more significant — or more deserving of public attention — than the salaries employees receive.
Unlike private business, government agencies do not generate their own revenue in a competitive marketplace. They collect taxes and fees under authority granted by the citizens. Citizens are the ultimate shareholders of government, and they have a right to know how their tax money is spent.
DES MOINES’ DECISION to publish the employee compensation in a scattershot fashion represents a deeper problem than just poor optics. The way officials arranged the names suggests an attempt to circumvent the purpose of the requirement rather than embracing the responsibility.
This is not the first time the Des Moines district has acted as if its residents were an annoyance. We saw this last October, when the school board accepted the immediate resignation of Robert Lundin, the district’s chief academic officer, but decided — for reasons never explained to the public — to continue paying him his $195,600 salary through June 30 of this year.
There is an important distinction between making information technically available and making it meaningfully accessible.
A school district genuinely committed to openness should recognize there are legitimate reasons for easily allowing people to examine salaries and other financial details. They may want to better understand how their tax money is spent, compare compensation among departments, identify unusually high salaries, investigate changes in compensation over time, or simply see what their teachers and administrators are paid.
This is not an extravagant demand. And that is why the random ordering of Des Moines school employee wages looks so bad. I’ve asked school officials for an explanation. Their complete reply appears below.
When the district makes the salaries hard to use, the public rightfully asks why. One wishes school leaders better understood how fragile the bond of trust is between the district and its constituents.
Secrecy breeds suspicion. And obfuscation invites contempt.
Being open and accountable is a mindset, and once you understand how it serves the public good, it is as easy as 1-2-3.
What Des Moines told me
Here is the complete statement from Amanda Lewis, the communications director for the Des Moines Public Schools, in response to my question about the district’s rationale for presenting the employee salary list in random fashion:
Hi Randy,
Per Iowa Code 279.35, “Salaries paid to individuals regularly employed by the district shall only be published annually and the publication shall include the total amount of the annual salary of each employee.” The Code does not contain any language on how the information is provided.
That being said, the district provided the Register with the attached sortable Excel file. They chose how to publish it.
One note about the district’s statement, which I received Tuesday night: The Excel computer file the district referenced in the email to me presented the employee names in the same random order as the names were published by the Des Moines Register.
Here’s the Des Moines list
Are you interested in the compensation paid to Des Moines Public Schools employees? Here are links that take you to the information contained in the district’s public notice last month. But our list appears first in alphabetical order and then from the highest amount to the lowest.
What about your district?
“Stray Thoughts” readers are located throughout Iowa. Please let me know whether your local school district publishes its employee salary list in random order, too. The list appears in your local newspaper, typically between late July and late autumn. Email me at IowaFOICouncil [at] gmail.com.
Your “Sunday newspaper”
Stray Thoughts is part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, a group of Iowa and former Iowa writers who post news articles, feature stories, sports stories and commentary about a wide range of topics of interest to folks from Ackley to Zwingle. Check out their work. It costs you nothing, although paid subscriptions are appreciated. Here’s the link to the Collaborative’s twice-a-week rundown.
Once upon a time, wouldn't the Register have exposed Rhodes?
At library today I saw Eastern Iowa Community College District...which is probably not the correct name....it went from highest paid to lowest paid....starting at about $330,000 plus with about 20 or more above $100,000......they had names but not the job titles.....
I don't have the numbers in front of me but lots and lots of people make $70,000 to $99,999
And many of us working in the private sector full time never made even $20,000....so many more make 40,000 and up...with benefits like sick time and vacation time and paid Holidays and health care and the IPERS pensions which seems unfair to private sector workers...
But for you and any readers interested...if you do a search such as Davenport Iowa employee wages or des Moines Iowa employee wages or Davenport Community School District employee wages or des Moines Community School District employee wages..
There is at least 2 websites that post the information.....
You can see highest paid to lowest...you can search employee names....for governments that include job titles you can search by job titles....
Re transparency....for example...Davenport used to report job titles and for older years they show up.....however under former city administrator Corrie Spiegal.....who I believe operated literally as a white supremacist abusing her position to discriminate in hiring services and "enforcement"....they stopped providing job titles....
Searching employees wages is fascinating and infuriating.....top government employees spend a lot of time focused on increasing their own pay....
Separate but similar.....you can search not for profits like "st Ambrose irs 990s" or "genesis hospital irs 990s" or I forget the name of the Scott County YMCA but they get paid good....the irs 990s show the president or ceo and some others...
The pro publica 990s site is easier to read....
Wages of government employees and not for profits....which can be extremely profitable..have never been adequately covered and are important when considering wages inequality and poverty and hunger and housing and homelessness....