Ohio Treasurer Publishes Public Employee Salary Database

A new online database allows Ohio taxpayers to see how much they are paying government workers across Ohio, from the governor and university presidents down to the teachers at your local elementary school.

The data was made available as part of a transparency project by Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel. It includes the most recent salary information for state employees, as well as historical salary info for teachers, higher-education workers, federal employees and some local employees.

Here are some examples of high-profile workers salaries available in the database:

• President Lester Lefton: $389,881 (2010 base salary) *Lefton's 2011 base salary is $401,576. The 2011 figure is not available in the treasurer's database.
• Kent City Schools Superintendent Joseph Giancola: $127,790 (2010)
• Kent City Councilman and Kent City Schools teacher Jack Amrhein: $77,231 (2010)
• Kent City Councilwoman and Kent State lecturer Tracy Wallach: $43,512 (2010)
• Ohio Gov. John Kasich: $143,903 (2011 salary)
• The Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee: $802,125 (2010)

Much of the data from the database was already made available by The Buckeye Institute.

While Kent residents can see how much their child's teacher at makes, salary information for Kent's city government workers is not available right now.

Mandel told The Plain Dealer he is working to include all local government salaries, and will push for legislation along those lines if necessary.