Why? Because the employer of public workers is us, the citizens,” Putnam wrote. “The bottom line is that public salaries should be available in a transparent way. Lansing State Journal columnist Judy Putnam said publishing public employee salaries - something the LSJ once did - may upset some people, but transparency is justified. “This database can provide information on whether there are disparities based on gender, race, ethnicity, etc.,” Jane Briggs-Bunting, founding president of the Coalition for Open Government, was quoted in the Lansing State Journal as saying. While not the first online database of public employee salaries in Michigan, the new database is the most extensive one and makes it easy for people to access public records. We and our partners now offer this database as a service to taxpayers and other watchdogs.” “We use these public records to fact-check claims about salaries, verify data from other open records requests and hold governments accountable for their spending. “As part of our government transparency project, the Mackinac Center often obtains data on the compensation of government employees in Michigan,” Michael Reitz, Mackinac Center executive vice president, was quoted by My Bay City as saying. The new database - which is easily searchable and made available as a public service by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Michigan Coalition for Open Government and Michigan Press Association - contains salary information of nearly 300,000 public employees. The value of government transparency and the need for more of it has been on full display since the Mackinac Center and two other watchdog groups released the Michigan Government Salaries Database in late March.
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