Government Salaries in Missouri at Issue in Recent Investigative Series

Patch is pleased to partner with Brian R. Hook, editor and investigative reporter for Missouri Watchdog, a news website dedicated to investigative journalism about local, state and federal government across Missouri. We've invited Hook to contribute a weekly column that describes what he's watching and why it's important for Missouri taxpayers.

How much money does your neighbor make? If your neighbor works for the government, you should be able to look up the figure. Unfortunately, finding that one piece of information is often harder than it needs to be.

As editor and investigative reporter for Missouri Watchdog, an online news website dedicated to covering all levels of government in Missouri, I spent the week analyzing data from the Missouri Accountability Portal.

First, I downloaded the publicly available data and converted it into a spreadsheet, listing salaries for more than 73,000 positions. My first story shows how more than 500 state employees are paid more than $100,000 a year.

Raw data is easily skewed, though. What first appears as one person bringing home $1.1 million during 2010 turns out to be 924 people participating in work programs at the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

The state government promotes the transparency portal as a "single point of reference" for taxpayers. However, not every government salary is listed online, and the data is not easy to analyze, as I show in a second story.

Using the Missouri Sunshine Law, I have now sent out requests for all state salaries.

This is more than a voyeuristic activity. It involves taxpayer money, your money.

And salaries are just one piece of the government-spending puzzle.

Lawmakers from around the state are negotiating in the Missouri General Assembly what could end up being around a $23.2 billion budget for next fiscal year, starting July 1. If that amount is matched, total state government spending would actually decrease 2.5 percent from the total spending estimated for the current fiscal year.

Despite talk of budget cuts, state spending has actually increased by 20.4 percent throughout the last five years.

The budget is required to be finalized on May 6 and Missouri Watchdog will be watching the process.

The idea behind this new column is to provide readers across the St. Louis region—whether in St. Charles County, St. Louis County or Jefferson County—with a closer look at how taxpayer money is spent.

Whether you spot waste, fraud or abuse involving any level of government in Missouri, or if you have a question about a transparency issue, feel free to contact me directly by email at brhook@missouriwatchdog.org.

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