Clicking and clucking: Portland's annual list of city salaries is out

The annual salary list for Portland city employees is out, and checking out who makes what is a pastime indulged widely from office to home to Internet café. The Oregonian's Ryan Frank offers up a trifecta of coverage: The news story covers highlights, including the fact five high-paid execs got bigger raises, of no less than 19 percent, than those lower on the list, like cops and firefighters (no more than 5 percent). The O also links to the much-clicked-on chart of the top 500 city employees with salaries. In a blog and talk forum, Frank notes his decision to limit the list to the top 500. The chart went deeper last year – by law, the city must disclose all salaries – but lower-level city employees complained that their modest livelihoods didn't need such big play, and their point was taken. Earlier this month, a KATU-TV (2) report crunched past charts to compare how many workers topped $100,000 – 258 in 2006, compared to 27 in 2000 – and suggested that Portland's motto, "The City That Works," might be switched to "The City That Pays." The 2007 chart linked to the Oregonian story shows 236 employees at six figures. Just so you know, the top two salaries go to Bruce Warner, director of the Portland Development Commission, at $160,517, and Water Utility director David Shaff at $143,323. Mayor Tom Potter is 151st on the list at $105,110. If the salary chart whets your appetite for Portland city finances, blogger Amanda Fritz (onetime candidate for City Council whose non-numeric ruminations make even better reading) provides what one regular reader calls the CliffsNotes version of the city auditor's 20-page Financial Condition Report (492K PDF), released in April.