Senator questions releasing of salaries

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - A state senator is demanding the State Ethics Commission investigate Comptroller Peter Franchot for releasing a list of six-figure state salaries to The Baltimore Examiner last week.

Sen. James Ed DeGrange said the list of 4,678 names of state employees making more than $100,000 “appears to have been distributed for personal political gain,” in violation of state law. DeGrange is an Anne Arundel County Democrat and budget subcommittee chairman who has tangled recently with Franchot over the salaries of his deputies.

“I believe he violated the trust of state employees,” DeGrange told reporters at a news conference. “This information was not requested, it was offered.” He called the release “unethical” and “outright wrong.”

Franchot responded with an e-mailed statement from spokesman Joseph Shapiro, who actually supplied the list to The Examiner. The comptroller cited state law that says employee salaries are public records but said he “takes very seriously his obligation under the law to keep confidential records out of the public domain.”

“The comptroller also believes very strongly in the open conduct of government and in the public’s right to have access to public information,” Shapiro said. “Tax records are confidential; state employees’ salaries are not.”

On Feb. 13, Franchot told reporters he had heard rumors that one of his three deputies, all paid $151,000, were going to be eliminated by the Senate Budget Committee in retaliation for his outspoken opposition to slot machine gambling. “I’d be happy to supply a long list of people in state government that are equally paid,” Franchot said.

The next day, The Examiner formally requested such a list under the state Public Information Act. “Actually, we’d like to see all state employees who make more than $100,000 if that is possible. An electronic version would be preferred,” the e-mailed request said.

In five days, his office supplied a 98-page computer printout with names, salaries but no titles.

On Monday, The Examiner published a column headlined, “Six-figure salaries not uncommon for state workers,” but only a few were cited by name. The column caused significant grumbling among some state executives.

llazarick@baltimoreexaminer.com

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