While "personnel records" of public employees are mostly exempt under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), N.J.S.A. 47:1A-10 makes certain types of personnel information expressly available to the public. Specifically, a public employee's "name, title, position, salary, payroll record, length of service, date of separation and the reason therefor, and the amount and type of any pension received shall be a government record" and must be disclosed to the public.
As one can see, one of the items within the public domain is an employee's "payroll record." But, what exactly is a payroll record and what information must it contain?
This question was answered by the Government Records Council (GRC), the State agency charged with enforcing OPRA, in the case of Gregory Havlusch, Jr. v. Borough of Allenhurst (Monmouth), Government Records Council Complaint No. 2011-243. In that case, the GRC's Executive Director opined (see pp 3 to 5 of the December 18, 2012 Findings and Recommendations of the Executive Director) that "an employee's payroll records should include information that will allow a person to determine whether an employee took a leave of absence, the dates of the leave, whether it was paid, and if so, the amount of salary received for the paid leave of absence."
Based on this ruling, I made a request to the City of Bridgeton (Cumberland County) for the "payroll record" of Jeffrey Bordley who serves as a police officer and, incidentally, also serves as an elected member of the Vineland Board of Education. (For those who wish to make a similar request, I've placed a text file of an OPRA request on-line here.)
Bridgeton sent me two files in response to my request, an "Attendance Transaction Report by Employee ID" and a "Detail Time Worked by Employee ID."
I invite readers to examine these reports carefully. While they are difficult to fully understand, they appear to show that Bordley was using sick, vacation and administrative time as well as worker's compensation, family medical leave and "Police Paid Administrative Leave" for substantial periods of time between May 2015 and May 2017. It should be noted that Bordley was injured in a serious head-on collision on Saturday, February 4, 2017, which probably accounts for much of the time he wasn't working regular shifts in 2017. It is unknown, however, why he was not working many of his normal shifts prior to February 4, 2017.
Citizen's who suspect that a public employee may be on extended leave may want to request his or her "payroll record" in order to confirm or dispel that belief and to determine whether the leave is paid or unpaid.