From the how much is too much category, the “conservative” Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (see their Wikipedia entry) under the guise of the “Empire Center For New York State Policy
You can go there and faithfully study every public employee’s pay. You can search by name or by agency. This is a trend among people posing as open government/good government types. Ohio went so far as to publish every public employee’s pay and home address until they were stopped.
You probably should avoid the site for awhile since their servers are getting bombarded. When I checked their site earlier today I found that their web programmers left a few of the pages, including the one for searching public payrolls, completely unsecured. Anyone could have deleted large chunks of the site through a simple to use interface at the top of the page. It is one of those really stupid things people do when they are in a hurry.
Of course most of the State’s citizenry could care less. They’re worried about larger more personal matters. This stuff generally appeals to government workers (especially those with a grudge against the boss), political hacks, folks with a ax to grind, and those wanting to track down people who have seized their assets because of tax evasion, who have arrested them, who have audited them, or who have evaded them only by obtaining a restraining order (the ex-spouses and stalkers).
Now, all this information is public and a state’s citizens have a right to that information. Prior to publishing this site any citizen could get the very same data by making a FOIL request. For those with bad intent that at least left a paper trail and was self policing. Now those folks can do it from the comfort of their home computer.
By the way, the Manhattan Institute (see the People for the American Way report on these folks) publishes the salaries of their highest paid employees and directors via their IRS filings. Here’s a copy of their 2006 Form 990. You will note that their Chairman, Lawrence J. Mone pulled down a little over $400,000 in salary and deferred compensation in 2006. Since 1998 he’s received approximately $200,000 per year! Of course they don’t publish their entire payroll. I wonder what their lowest paid secretary, receptionist, or bathroom cleaner makes?