FSU Officials Have Yet to Provide Complete Salary Data

The Bottom Line has been seeking to publish Frostburg State University’s salary information since September 16, 2015, but salary information provided by university officials is frequently incomplete.

The Lewis J. Ort library at FSU keeps salary records for full time faculty members and exempt staff members. The Bottom Line scanned these print documents into Adobe Acrobat, and then used an online file converter to convert the PDF into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

However, this salary information was incomplete, lacking the salaries of full-time faculty members on a non-tenure track, non-exempt staff (police officers, secretaries, housekeepers, etc), and contractual employees (adjunct instructors, graduate assistants, student employees, etc).

Because FSU is a public university, salary information is available to the public. Taxpayers, students, and alumni have the right to know how their money is being spent.

A librarian told The Bottom Line that he was unsure which office provided the salary lists but that the payroll office would be the best bet. On Wednesday, September 16, The Bottom Line emailed Mr. Avalon Ledong, who works in the Human Resources office as the Coordinator of Compensation and Classification, for an updated list.

On Friday, September 18, Ledong emailed The Bottom Line, saying that Denise Murphy, the associate budget director, would be able to help. The Bottom Line contacted Murphy on Monday, September 21 for more salary information. She said, “I received your request.  I will let you know when the contractual list will be done.”

On Monday, September 28, Sherri Sheetz, a budget analyst, said, “I will provide you with this information by tomorrow morning.  I apologize for the delay.  I was out of the office last week.” Sheetz emailed The Bottom Line a Microsoft Excel document with salaries for exempt staff, full time faculty, and full time faculty on a non-tenure track.

Salaries for contractual employees were not included, and The Bottom Line immediately asked when this information could be available.

“I’m not sure what information is available,” said Sheetz. “Please contact Amy Nightengale, the payroll manager, to see if she can help you”

The Bottom Line emailed Nightengale for more information on Tuesday, September 29. At press time, Nightengale had not replied.

Murphy added, “Sherri [Sheetz] sent you the three sets of lists we publish in the library annually.  Thanks!”

Update: On October 8, 2015, Denise Murphy provided two more lists to The Bottom Line, including nonexempt benefitted staff and contractual nonexempt employees. 

Here is a link to the data that is currently available.