Get in touch

A few words about what we can help with, what we can't, and the fastest way to get a useful response.

Corrections to a salary record

If a record on this site has the wrong name, title, agency, or pay figure, the issue almost certainly originates in the underlying state release that we mirror. We cannot correct a record on OpenPayrolls without the upstream publisher correcting it first, because the next refresh would silently revert any change we made on our end. The fastest path to a correction:

1. Identify the exact record (the URL of the employee page, e.g. /employee/12345).
2. Contact the human-resources office of the agency listed on the record, citing the discrepancy.
3. If the agency confirms the correction, ask them to republish the affected payroll line in the next snapshot the State of Texas sends to its open-data feed. We will pick it up automatically.

If you have already gone through that process and the upstream record is correct but our page still shows old data, please contact us with both URLs and we will investigate.

Tips for journalists and researchers

We love a good question. The most useful tips include the URL or URLs you're working from, a one-paragraph description of what you're trying to find out, and any deadline pressure. We can usually point you at the right slice of the underlying Tribune CSV faster than you can re-derive it. We do not republish leaked data and we do not facilitate the de-anonymization of records that have been suppressed for safety reasons.

Partnerships

Newsrooms, university researchers, and civic-tech projects sometimes ask whether we can co-host a vertical (e.g. school district payrolls in addition to state agencies) or expose a queryable subset of the data. Those conversations are welcome. We are a small operation and we move slowly, but we will respond.

What we won't do

We do not accept paid suppressions, paid promotions of records, or paid placement of any kind. We do not write opinion pieces about specific public employees on request. We do not provide commentary on individual records as part of HR investigations or employment disputes — those are properly the domain of the agency, not a transparency site.

Direct contact

The fastest way to reach us is by email at tips at openpayrolls dot example (please replace the “at” and “dot” before sending; we obfuscate to reduce automated spam). We aim to respond within two business days.