From the Fayetteville Observer (3/17/10): When it comes to public employee personnel records, North Carolina's sunshine is in full eclipse.
A nearly impenetrable veil covers the work records of public employees. A state or municipal worker can exhibit egregious behavior, waste public money, flout public policy and be fired for it. But if you ask what happened, you only learn the employee’s hiring date, separation date and salary at time of departure. That’s it. The rest is a state secret.
By law, state or local government can’t even provide a salary history or information about promotions or demotions. North Carolina has the most restrictive personnel laws in the country.
Even the head of the State Employees Association of North Carolina doesn’t get it. In a News & Observer interview published Tuesday, Dana Cope said, “By and large, I don’t see a problem with being able to disclose the historical salaries of state employees or the historical nature of what their job titles and duties were.”
We don’t see a problem with far more extensive openness. These are public employees, paid by public funds – our money. We have the right and even obligation as citizens to see that our government is well run. Thanks to overly secretive laws, we don’t have a clue.
That has to change. We hope the General Assembly will concur.
Fayetteville Observer Staff Editorial