From the Charlotte Observer (11/12/10): Three cheers for Grayson Kelley and JB Kelly, who appear to have both common sense and the ability to accurately interpret law. Their work should go a long way toward letting taxpayers know what their governments are doing.
Kelley is North Carolina’s chief deputy attorney general, and Kelly is Attorney General Roy Cooper’s general counsel. They issued an opinion Monday that made clear that a new law requires state and local governments to release historical information about public employees’ pay, discipline and promotions.
Their opinion should put to rest doubts from the City of Charlotte and a handful of other governments that such records belong to the public. That City Attorney Mac McCarley continued to question what the law means and delay the inevitable is disappointing, though not surprising.
Until now, North Carolina allowed only very limited information about public employees’ work history to be made public. It was the only state in the nation that took such a secretive approach. The legislature overwhelmingly voted to fix that this year. Legislators changed the personnel law to make past salaries, promotions, demotions, suspensions and other disciplinary actions public. Dismissal letters spelling out why employees were fired were also declared public records.
The idea was that these employees work for the public and are paid with tax dollars. So the public has a right to know when they are disciplined and how and why.