Telegraph begins open government push | Local & State | Macon.com

The Telegraph believes government should be transparent and held accountable to the public. In order to fulfill this mission, we are placing a greater emphasis on watchdog journalism through the presentation of online databases.

We published a new set of data Wednesday to macon.com, a salary database of every employee in the Bibb County school system for the 2013-14 school year. The school system is considering a proposal to change its pay scale for classified employees; this database gives readers a look at the pay for these employees.

The Telegraph requested the 2014-15 salary information from the Bibb school district Sept. 8. The school district returned our request Sept. 23 at a cost of $25. After the information was published, however, the school system informed us that the information they sent us was from 2013-14.

District spokeswoman Stephanie Hartley said the information was the most up-to-date at the time it was requested. She said the school system doesn’t roll its salary information over to the new fiscal year until Oct. 1. The Telegraph will request the new data.

In the coming weeks, in addition to salaries in other school systems, we’ll publish the salaries of employees in the Macon-Bibb County, Houston County and Peach County governments as well as the Centerville, Perry and Warner Robins city governments.

Our look at governments will go beyond salaries. Previously, we published crime data in Macon-Bibb County. Other areas we plan to investigate include health care and public safety. You will be able to find all the databases at www.macon.com/data.

For the most part, local municipalities and school systems have been receptive to the requests.

The Peach County government responded to our request Sept. 9, the same day the request was sent.

The Houston County government, Houston County school system and Centerville government all provided the information requested within a day, although Centerville didn’t provide names to go with job titles.

Perry responded within four days of our request, and Warner Robins took five days to return the information.

The Macon-Bibb County government granted a request dated Sept. 4 on Sept. 19.

via Telegraph begins open government push | Local & State | Macon.com.