EDITORIAL RIGHT TO KNOW RULING MAKES GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES' PAY TRANSPARENT.

DO you have a right to know your neighbor's salary? Yes, if that neighbor is a government employee.

The California Supreme Court last week handed down a decision that says openness in government is essential to the functioning of a democracy, and government employees should not have an expectation of privacy about their salaries, even if it may cause discomfort or embarrassment.

This wasn't always the case. Cities and counties have been using a 2003 Appellate Court decision to keep employees' salary information private. That ruling, involving five cities in San Mateo County, was wiped out by the Supreme Court's decision.

Public employees, individually and through their unions, have made it abundantly clear they don't want their salaries disclosed. But the greater issue, as Chief Justice Ronald M. George said in writing the majority decision, is openness in government and the public's interest in knowing how the government spends its money.

The court's decision to keep such public agencies' salary information transparent is thus good news for average taxpayers, whose annual salary increases are 2 percent to 3 percent.

The disclosure of salary information can certainly provide important information to citizens monitoring their city government. For instance, if a newspaper were to reveal that the number of city jobs paying $100,000 a year or more had doubled or tripled over a year or two, voters might want to question their city council members about such spending practices. They might even want to make changes at the ballot box.

Disclosure might be embarrassing to some, but it serves a greater public interest.