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Online news organization The Texas Tribune lists the annual salaryof continuing education instructor Keith Palmgren at $224,418, making him, according to their records, thesecond-highest paid person in the district, behind only ChancellorBruce Leslie who earns $319,937 annually. However, the Tribune s information is incorrect. District public information officer Nancy Kempf said last week that she received a public information request fromThe Texas Tribune in August requesting the name, title, department,race, gender, hire date and annual salary of all Alamo Collegesemployees. Kempf said she relayed the request to Andrea Priolo , director of compensation and benefits in human resources. Priolo said she used the Banner Human Resources Module to gather theinformation and then provided the information to Kempf to send to The Texas Tribune. She said the module calculates the annual salary of hourlyemployees by multiplying employees hourly pay rate by 2,080hours, the product of a 40-hour work week multiplied by 52 weeks ayear; however, actual paid wages of continuing educationinstructors are considerably lower than that calculated annualamount. The automatic Banner calculation caused figures in the Tribunedatabase to suggest continuing education instructors are paidsix-figure salaries. Priolo said she did not receive requests from The Texas Tribune toclarify the information. Ryan Murphy, data reporter at The Texas Tribune, said theinformation on the website was last updated Aug. 17 and The TexasTribune is currently working on an update of its database ofgovernment employee salaries. I didn t know that was an issue with Alamo (Colleges), Murphysaid. He said there have been some inaccuracies with salaries at otherinstitutions, such as the University of Texas at Austin, but theinaccuracies involving those salaries had a different cause fromthe ones in this district and varied according to institution. Murphy said the database is updated if corrections are warranted,and the method of collecting data changes to reflect the mostaccurate data-collecting techniques. For instance, the current Texas Public Information Act requestletter the Tribune sends to institutions states, If you areproviding an employee's salary through an established pay rate(hourly, bi-weekly, etc.), please be explicit in designating thoseemployees as full-time or part-time. I request that you do notannualize any salaries in order to comply with the annual salaryfield (we are only interested in what is actually earned by anemployee). Murphy said the request sent to this district in August did notspecify that the information provided about hourly or bi-weeklyemployees not be annualized. He said the request of the Alamo Colleges was likely sent in Augustbefore the specification was added and the Tribune updated itsrequest template to reflect actual pay. In this situation, it s what we were asking for, he said,adding that interpretation of requests can cause flawed results. Careful wording is required to avoid confusion in publicinformation requests. We give them what they ask for, Priolo said. To view the most recent Public Information Act request templateused by The Texas Tribune, visit texas-public-records/texas-government-payroll/about/ . The spirit of the law Dr. Paul Wilson, social sciences and humanities chair, said whileit does not appear that the district maliciously provided The TexasTribune false information, the district did not uphold the spiritof the law when providing misleading information. Wilson said the Public Information Act was passed to encouragetransparency and the spread of information about public entities. He said because citizens don t have the luxury to decide if theywant to pay taxes, they should be able to see how the governmentspends their money. We have a democratic system, and democracy doesn t work withoutan informed electorate, he said. He said in an environment where budget cuts are plentiful andpeople are suspicious of how money is spent, as in this district,it does not do administrators favors to provide misinformation. It can be a nuisance to provide information, but you know what?It comes with the territory, he said. Continuing education pay rates Tim Rockey, dean of continuing education and workforce development,said continuing education instructors are paid hourly for time theyspend teaching at a rate of $18-$27 an hour. He said factors such as education level, recent experience in afield and ability to instruct students help determine the rate ofpay. However, some instructors who teach high-demand courses are paidabout $100 per hour, Rockey said. For instance, he said information technologies services in thecontinuing education program at Northeast Lakeview College requiresinstructors to be familiar with many technical and up-to-dateprograms, warranting possible higher hourly pay. A public information request for the actual paid wages ofcontinuing education instructors from Sept. 1 to April 30 was sentto Kempf April 30. Kempf replied via email that the information will be provided toThe Ranger no later than May 14. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Miniature Surveillance Cameras Manufacturer , China Dome Infrared Camera for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Waterproof Infrared Camera.
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