Read the source. Keep the distinctions.

Four different kinds of pay records

A salary schedule establishes rates or ranges for a job, grade or step. It does not prove a particular person occupies the position, qualifies for that step, works a full year or receives that amount. A band marked “Market” has no numeric maximum in that source; we preserve the label.

A budget salary line authorizes or plans spending. It may cover an entire department, vacancies, part-time work or multiple employees. Gretna’s departmental salary appropriations are therefore labeled aggregate budget entries. The council line is not treated as one councilmember’s salary.

A staffing table counts authorized positions. Authorized positions and filled jobs are different measures. An employee compensation export reports the fields supplied by the publishing agency. Virginia’s FY2024 APA export supplies salary, bonuses and total salary but no employee names or job titles. Its record count is not a count of unique people.

An actual payroll register can contain earnings for a defined pay period, separate overtime or other payment types. We do not relabel a schedule, appropriation or ambiguous source field as a verified payment. Employer contributions, benefit costs, reimbursements and take-home pay require their own definitions and supporting records.

Periods and units stay attached

Fiscal year 2027 local budgets generally cover July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. The state compensation export covers FY2024. Federal GS schedules here are calendar-year 2026 annual rates, including the locality adjustment stated in the selected table. A source checked today does not become a current-year record.

School schedules can depend on contract days, qualifications and steps. Teacher and cafeteria contract amounts are not converted into hourly pay or a twelve-month annual salary. Different contract lengths and employment fractions make a simple ranking misleading. Compare like-for-like units and identify the effective period before calculating changes.

Blank fields remain missing. Zero is retained when reported. Negative values remain visible. In the APA export, arithmetic discrepancies between components and reported totals are flagged instead of silently “corrected.” Source row references permit reproduction without publishing raw employee identifiers.

A budget is a plan with a legal and accounting context

Proposed, adopted and amended budgets describe different stages. An adopted budget is not an audit of actual spending. Transfers between funds can appear on both sides of a summary; adding fund totals without accounting for eliminations can count the same money twice. Capital plans may include several future years and unfunded proposals.

Each document record identifies the status the publisher gives it and preserves material inconsistencies. Gretna’s FY2027 file is headed “adopted,” while columns inside still say “proposed.” Readers should see that discrepancy, not an editorial guess about which text supersedes the other. An older transmittal letter inside a subsequently adopted book is likewise identified where relevant.

For a spending investigation, compare the adopted appropriation with amendments, transaction detail, procurement records, contracts and audited financial statements for the same period. A budget line alone cannot establish waste, favoritism or a completed purchase. We link the paperwork and distinguish supported observations from unanswered questions.

Original paperwork and reproducible extracts

Document pages link back to official publishing pages and the original files. Where a PDF copy is available, readers can view it inside the page or download it. Large books are divided into consecutive parts that retain the original pages. The viewer maps an original book page to the correct part and local page number.

Hashes identify the reviewed original and local copies. Text extracts are reading aids; scanned pages may not contain selectable text. Transcribed schedule entries include a PDF page reference and their source basis. The original document controls if a transcription differs.

The APA CSV download preserves all 110,561 FY2024 records across 214 agency identifiers, with raw employee identifiers removed and source row numbers added. Agency JSON files provide the same values for the browser. We do not attach inferred employee names or combine these rows into person-level profiles.

Coverage, privacy and corrections

This is a growing, dated collection, not a claim that every public employee or government body is covered. The coverage panel identifies missing or inaccessible records, including local governments whose current budget or payroll document could not be verified. A failed download does not mean an agency has no public records.

Virginia’s personnel-record provision distinguishes protected personnel material from certain accessible employment and compensation information, with qualifications in the statute. Public compensation reporting does not require exposing Social Security numbers, banking information, medical details or private contact information. This collection does not publish those fields.

For missing data, a focused request should identify existing records, the agency, reporting period and desired fields—for example, an adopted budget with amendments, or a payroll export with documented pay categories. Agencies may have different disclosure rules and retention practices. No request has been sent on a reader’s behalf by this page.

Corrections should identify the document or dataset, source page or row, exact issue and an official replacement source. Newer records should retain their own period instead of overwriting historical figures. Source review dates show when we checked a publication; they do not promise that the agency has made no later amendment.

Fairness and independence

Public compensation supports scrutiny of public decisions. It is not a score of an employee’s worth. Comparisons should consider responsibilities, hours, contract terms, vacancies and local conditions where the records establish them. A missing record is not evidence of wrongdoing. Officials, employees and residents can supply corrections through the same channel.

Advertising and paid business visibility do not buy inclusion, omission or favorable treatment in this collection. AI assists with indexing and transcription; source checking, explicit limitations and a correction route remain part of publication.