Salary lists, much like directories, are a great background resource when reporting stories.
It helps you figure out who that officer is, only listed by first name and last initial in the police report, and tells you what everyone is making.
This is helpful when reporting on stories about proposed raises, about pay discrepancies, reporting on the number of officers, on how much officers in a department are being paid (in comparison to bigger departments) and acts as a general reference when you need someone’s name.
Fortunately, all of the New Mexico state employee salaries are online, if not a little out of date.
Go to employees.newmexico.gov.
You can search from there or run specific reports.
NM Searchlight is also compiling salaries of public employees by each year into a database.
See their incredible resource here: https://data.searchlightnm.com/payrolls
