Public education employee salaries now available at NPRI's TransparentNevada website

LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Policy Research Institute today announced that it is now providing 2009 salary data for more than 100,000 state and local public employees, including, for the first time, employee salaries from the Clark and Washoe County school districts as well as the Nevada System of Higher Education. The salary information is available at a newly redesigned and improved version of TransparentNevada.com, a website devoted to providing Nevada taxpayers with crucial information on government financing.

"Thanks to these enhancements to TransparentNevada, visitors now have access to twice as much data on public financing as they did previously," said Steven Miller, NPRI's vice president for policy. "Most significantly, they now have access to information on how the state's K-12 and higher education systems are spending public funds Given the massive amount of money spent on public education in Nevada, it is extremely important that taxpayers be able to hold these systems accountable."

The release of this new data is particularly important in light of the fiscal challenges Nevada faces at all levels of government, Miller said.

"As Nevadans in the private sector tighten their belts, state and county governments must do so also," Miller said. "Yet Nevada's public-employee unions fight against transparency in the collective bargaining process and resist government efforts to economize. How much government employees are actually making, however, is something taxpayers deserve to know."

The redesigned site also features an enhanced search tool, information on congressional disbursements and a blog, as well as a subscriber system allowing citizens to stay up-to-date on the latest site news. TransparentNevada, located at TransparentNevada.com, was first launched in September 2008 and has served as a unique source of government-financing information for thousands of citizens, journalists and elected officials. Miller said that even with the new upgrades, further improvements are scheduled for the coming weeks.