East Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Much of the information in Monday evening's
In Depth: School Salaries coverage comes from a website called
SeeThroughNY.net, a site built and maintained by a non-profit, non-partisan research center called the
Empire Center.
The Governor called out superintendents for making too much money, half-a-dozen local districts have asked teachers to take a pay freeze - but any informed opinion on the subject requires information. The data from SeeThroughNY.net is gathered directly from the state agencies in charge of workers who get paid with resident's tax dollars.
The most popular link from SeeThroughNY.net's homepage is the payroll and pension tab. Visitors can access information on how much anyone in state or local government earns, including school districts.
As an example, we looked up Governor Andrew Cuomo's payroll from the last two years while he was the NYS Attorney General. Cuomo made $153,000 in 2008 and in 2009 received $151,000.
SeeThroughNY.net also offers data on expenditures, things like legislative member items, which is more commonly known as pork barrel spending.
A search for Senator John DeFrancisco, for example, reveals a list of all the organizations he's secured money for over the past year, and how much they got.
The site also has information on state contracts and department spending.
