2005-01 Disclosure of Exact Salaries OIP Opinion 05-03

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Mr. Michael Tresler January 19, 2005 Page 4 In mandating that the exact salaries of exempt employees be public, the legislature specifically required disclosure of only the salary range of covered employees. Specifically, the statute provides: Any law to the contrary notwithstanding, each agency shall make available for public inspection and duplication during regular business hours: [tJhe name, compensation (but only the salary range for employees covered by or included in chapter 76, and sections 302A-602 to 302A- 640, and 302A-701, or bargaining unit (8)),job title, business address, business telephone number,job description, education and training background, previous work experience, dates of first and last employment, position number, type of appointment, service computation date, occupational group or class code, bargaining unit code, employing agency name and code, department, division, branch, office, section, unit, and island of employment, of present or former officers or employees of the agency[.] Haw. Rev. Stat. § 92F-12(a)(14) (Supp. 2003). By requiring disclosure of only their salary ranges, the legislature implicitly appears to have recognized that covered employees possess a privacy interest in their exact salaries.? Generally, where an individual has a significant privacy interest in a record (or in information contained in a record), an agency is required to balance the privacy interest against the public's interest in disclosure and may withhold the record where the person's privacy interest is not outweighed by the public's interest. Haw. Rev. Stat. § 92F- 13(1) (1999). In this case, however, we need not determine whether the covered employees' privacy interest in their exact salaries is significant and, if so, whether that privacy interest outweighs, the public's interest in disclosure of their exact salaries. Instead, our analysis is concentrated solely on the Charter's requirement that the proposed budget, which includes the exact salaries, be made available to the public. We must determine whether that requirement, which effectively denies Finance the ability to withhold the proposed budget (or information contained in the record) as it may be permitted to do in accordance with one or more of the UIPA's exceptions, 7 We recognize that the proposed budget contains the proposed salaries of Count}, employees, which may or may not be the actual salaries that those employees earn in the upcoming fiscal year. We, however, have assumed that the proposed salaries most frequently become the actual salaries and/or may be the exact salaries that the employees earn currently. Therefore, for the purposes of this opinion, we have analyzed Finance's request as if the covered employees'salaries as contained in the proposed budget are their actual salaries. OIP Op. Ltr. No. 05-03