Federal employee salary redacted

[Anonymous]

What’s up with FOIA stuff? Most feds salary info is online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s up with FOIA stuff? Most feds salary info is online.

How exactly do you think it came to be online?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s up with FOIA stuff? Most feds salary info is online.

The info is online because those websites submit mass FOIA requests every year so they can publish the data. The government itself isn’t putting it online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another exclusion outside of the intelligence agencies are independent agencies where pay is based on performance- as in, I get a 20K salary increase if my performance was awesome last year and a 15K increase if it was good.

It can be witheld from FOIA and then not make it to those websites because of that privacy info.

Given that you said this person makes over 200K I'm guessing this is the reason. Try looking up other people at their agency. Are all the salaries redacted?

Sorry why would that be withheld under FOIA? Bonuses are public information as well. I fail to see how anyone outside of intelligence and DOD can get their salaries withheld.

Because disclosing a performance based bonus would disclose an employee's performance ratings, and that's not subject to foia.

Ah, interesting. I work on the GS Scale and my bonus is never included online but the rest of my salary is. I wonder if this is the reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
My DH was a federal employee for 20 years, before switching to a law firm.

It always seemed like an invasion of privacy that his particular salary information was available online. I find it disrespectful to federal employees.

Also, these random web sites had his salary listed as a much lower amount than he was being paid. He didn't bother to try to go to these web sites to get it fixed.

It only mattered really during his job search (when attempting to transition to the private sector), as some places would ask about salary history. He didn't want them to think he had a lower salary than he really had. But granted that was easily fixable by showing the W-2s.

I do not think they include locality bonuses for some bizarre reason. It is disrespectful no doubt. But it is public money, and the people who write the laws disrespect federal employees for fun. They could very easily withhold salary information if they wanted to, but they choose not to because it is fun and exciting to find some GS-15 and call them lazy, overpaid, and stupid so the midwestern housewives can get fired up for an election.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My DH was a federal employee for 20 years, before switching to a law firm.

It always seemed like an invasion of privacy that his particular salary information was available online. I find it disrespectful to federal employees.

Also, these random web sites had his salary listed as a much lower amount than he was being paid. He didn't bother to try to go to these web sites to get it fixed.

It only mattered really during his job search (when attempting to transition to the private sector), as some places would ask about salary history. He didn't want them to think he had a lower salary than he really had. But granted that was easily fixable by showing the W-2s.

I do not think they include locality bonuses for some bizarre reason. It is disrespectful no doubt. But it is public money, and the people who write the laws disrespect federal employees for fun. They could very easily withhold salary information if they wanted to, but they choose not to because it is fun and exciting to find some GS-15 and call them lazy, overpaid, and stupid so the midwestern housewives can get fired up for an election.

The law you are referring to is FOIA- the one that applies equally to information about how the federal government operates and how taxpayer funds are spent.

[Anonymous]

So sick of FOIA poster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So sick of FOIA poster.

Why?

The original question is about how salary information is redacted. Answer is FOIA.
The other questions are about why it is released at all. Answer is FOIA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So sick of FOIA poster.

Because they keep answering people's questions with the correct answer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So sick of FOIA poster.

Because they keep answering people's questions with the correct answer?

Btw, there's more than one of us posting correct answers to FOIA.

I'm surprised that all feds aren't more knowledgeable on FOIA. Makes me wonder about which agency you're at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My DH was a federal employee for 20 years, before switching to a law firm.

It always seemed like an invasion of privacy that his particular salary information was available online. I find it disrespectful to federal employees.

Also, these random web sites had his salary listed as a much lower amount than he was being paid. He didn't bother to try to go to these web sites to get it fixed.

It only mattered really during his job search (when attempting to transition to the private sector), as some places would ask about salary history. He didn't want them to think he had a lower salary than he really had. But granted that was easily fixable by showing the W-2s.

I do not think they include locality bonuses for some bizarre reason. It is disrespectful no doubt. But it is public money, and the people who write the laws disrespect federal employees for fun. They could very easily withhold salary information if they wanted to, but they choose not to because it is fun and exciting to find some GS-15 and call them lazy, overpaid, and stupid so the midwestern housewives can get fired up for an election.

I see locality pay included online when I've searched. More than likely, it's how the FOIA request was written. Maybe they asked for Grade and Step instead of salary. And then the person posting it online just posts the normal salary for that grade and step (without taking into account the correct locality).

I've never seen bonuses included or asked for. But we're feds and our bonuses aren't huge- most are $1500 and nearly all are under $5k, so it's easy to do the math. SES bonuses are huge though.

I'm glad that they release salaries. Transparency means that everyone is treated the same. You don't have to wonder if your coworker who does less work than you is paid more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So sick of FOIA poster.

Because they keep answering people's questions with the correct answer?

Btw, there's more than one of us posting correct answers to FOIA.

I'm surprised that all feds aren't more knowledgeable on FOIA. Makes me wonder about which agency you're at.

My agency hires a lot of FOIA staff because it is miserable and none of us want to deal with it. We are too busy to figure out anything about FOIA other than an awareness that any work related text, voicemail, email, etc will be FOIA at some time.

[Anonymous]

I’ve never been able to locate myself on these sites despite being a fed in the same agency for nearly 20 years. I am not IC, or any agency with the base salary bumps people discussed above.

[Anonymous]

How come I can't see my relative who works for the CIA on the site?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve never been able to locate myself on these sites despite being a fed in the same agency for nearly 20 years. I am not IC, or any agency with the base salary bumps people discussed above.

lots of agencies don't have to respond to the FOIA requests - IC, DoD, State FSOs, Federal Reserve, etc.