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McDowell public salary database now online

By Scott Hollifield | The McDowell News

Published: December 16, 2008

As part of an effort by Media General's community newspapers, The McDowell News has launched an online, searchable public salary database (www.mcdowellnews.com/payroll08).
There you will find the salaries and job titles of publicly paid employees in McDowell County making $25,000 a year or more. We made a public records request to McDowell County, the city of Marion, the Town of Old Fort, the school system and McDowell Technical Community College for the information.
We believe this is important for taxpayers to know and will hopefully lead to more informed debates on issues and policies. All the information included is available to any citizen who requests it. We are simply making it easier to obtain.
This is part of larger effort to make public records more accessible. In the future, we plan to add court documents, crime maps, meeting minutes and other information to our site.
One salary on the list does need to be clarified. For the McDowell County Schools, an employee with the title "tech support" has a salary listed at $104,004. Because this seemed out of line with other salaries, we asked for an explanation. According to the school finance officer, the employee is on loan to the state for a year to implement and service NCWISE projects. The state determined the wage and reimburses the local school system for her position. She will return to her local position and salary after a year on the state project.