A year and a half after the Daily Lobo requested that a version of UNM’s Salary Book be made available online, it is still only available in hard copy at Zimmerman Library.
The book, which is only available two hours at a time, cannot be physically removed from the library.
GPSA has passed three resolutions in the last three years, calling on the administration to post the data online, but the administration has yet to post an electronic copy.
“In the course of a short afternoon, the entire book could be uploaded (online),” GPSA President Katie Richardson said. “I see no reason to delay putting up information that is already available.”
Richardson said because the information in the salary book is so inaccessible, the administration has not made the information truly public.
“Students and tax payers deserve to know what UNM employees are being paid; this information is available in the least convenient form possible, in a dusty book in Zimmerman Library, but it needs to be accessible in an easy format online,” Richardson said.
In fall 2010, GPSA passed a resolution sponsored by former Daily Lobo Editor-in-Chief Pat Lohmann, “encourage(ing) the Human Resources Department, the UNM administration and University Counsel to create and update a digital spreadsheet document of the UNM Salary Book,” but the resolution was struck down by the administration.
In 2011, GPSA passed a second resolution requesting an online salary book. But the administration approved the development of an online salary database that did not include student employees or graduate assistantships in order to comply with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law intended to protect student information.
Cinnamon Blair, director of University Communication and Marketing, said UNM began the Sunshine Portal project in fall 2011 to make the salary book available online. The Sunshine Portal is a project headed by Executive Vice President David Harris that will offer UNM’s salary information online, including budget, contracted vendors and financial information, Blair said. The portal is under development by UNM Human Resources, Information Technologies and Finance departments.
GPSA submitted a third resolution in February, requesting that the database include student employees’ and graduate assistantships’ salaries, but the administration has yet to decide whether students will be added to the Sunshine Portal.
The database is still being developed. Blair said the portal is expected to be available by May of this year.
“This is a reasonable amount of time for this to take,” she said. “Trying to convert the existing book into another electronic format would require programming changes and (instead) we are trying to build a comprehensive searchable sustainable model that will be updated automatically.”
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Blair said the final database will include not just salaries, but also budget information and contracts for the entire University.
Blair said the cost of the project cannot be calculated because it is being uploaded by employees who are already on payroll.
“The costs are all internal, five people are building the system that can be uploaded and updated monthly,” she said. “It’s a collaborative effort between (Information Technologies,) Budget and Finance.”
