If a public employee's name, salary, hire date, and job title are requested under the Arkansas FOIA, can the agency release them?
Subject
Whether release of public employee compensation data (name, salary, hire date, position) is consistent with the Arkansas FOIA.
Plain-English summary
Rodolfo Ramirez, an inspector at the Jacksonville Housing Authority, learned that someone had filed a FOIA request for employees' 2024 compensation data: first name, middle initial, last name, hire date, base salary, bonus, overtime, gross annual wages, and position title. The Authority's records custodian planned to release the records. As the subject of the records, Ramirez exercised his statutory right under § 25-19-105(c)(3)(B)(i) to ask the AG for an opinion on whether the disclosure complies with the FOIA.
The AG concluded the release is consistent with the FOIA. The reasoning is short because the answer has been settled in this office for decades.
Public employee compensation records are personnel records under § 25-19-105(b)(12). Personnel records "must be disclosed unless that disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." Whether disclosure crosses that line is decided under the balancing test from Young v. Rice, 308 Ark. 593 (1992), which weighs the public's interest in access against the employee's privacy interest, with the scale tipped toward access.
The AG's office has consistently concluded that the public's interest in seeing how public funds are spent on employee compensation outweighs the employee's privacy interest in keeping that compensation confidential. Salaries, hire dates, position titles, and overtime / bonus structures show how taxpayer money flows. They are routinely public, and the AG cited a long line of opinions reaching that conclusion (2024-022, 2022-039, 2019-008, 2018-093, 2016-103, 2011-114, 2007-070, 2005-057, 95-220, 90-335).
One small caveat: the AG could not opine on the specific records the custodian intended to disclose because they were not provided. He opined only on the categories. So if the actual records contain additional fields beyond compensation (medical information, disciplinary detail, etc.), those might separately need redaction. But the categories Ramirez listed are clean for disclosure.
What this means for you
If you are a public employee in Arkansas
Your salary, position title, hire date, and basic compensation breakdowns are public records and will be disclosed in response to a FOIA request. This is well-settled. Personal contact information (your home address, personal phone, personal email) is exempt under § 25-19-105(b)(13), but compensation amounts are not.
If you believe the request is being made for harassment, that does not change the analysis. The AG's office and the Arkansas courts have repeatedly held that the requester's motive is irrelevant to whether disclosure is required. Your remedies for actual harassment are workplace complaint procedures, restraining orders if conduct rises to that level, and HR escalation. They are not FOIA-based.
If you are the subject of personnel or evaluation records being released, § 25-19-105(c)(3)(B)(i) gives you a statutory right to ask the AG for an opinion before release. This 2025-007 opinion is an example of that right being exercised. The AG can opine on consistency with the FOIA, but cannot stop a release that is consistent.
If you are a records custodian
Personnel records covering employee compensation are routinely disclosable. Use the Young v. Rice two-step balancing: first, is the information of a personal or intimate nature giving rise to a greater than minimal privacy interest? For salary and position information, no. Second, if yes, is the privacy interest outweighed by the public interest? Even when the answer at step one is yes for some discrete pieces (home addresses, dependents), the public interest is high for compensation amounts.
Redact discrete personal contact information per § 25-19-105(b)(13): home address, personal email, personal phone numbers. Do not redact name, position title, hire date, salary, bonus, overtime, or gross wages.
If a subject objects, document the objection and your decision rationale. The subject can request an AG opinion under § 25-19-105(c)(3)(B)(i); use the few-day window to provide the records to the AG and your reasoning.
If you are a FOIA requester or journalist
Compensation data is one of the most reliable categories of public records to obtain. If a custodian denies, this opinion (and the long line behind it) is your direct authority. Plan your request to ask for the categories, not for documents containing additional protected fields, to minimize friction.
You may want to ask for the records in spreadsheet form (CSV or Excel) rather than as scanned PDFs, since most agencies maintain compensation data in databases. Section 25-19-105 does not require the agency to create new records, but providing existing electronic records in a usable format is the norm.
If you are a public employee union representative
This opinion does not change what is releasable. It does confirm that compensation transparency is the floor in Arkansas. If members raise concerns about disclosure, the message is that this is settled law and that any pushback channel is legislative (revisit § 25-19-105 in the General Assembly), not records-by-records.
Common questions
Q: Is my salary public?
A: If you are a nonelected employee of an Arkansas public entity, yes. Your name, hire date, base salary, bonus, overtime, gross wages, and position title are personnel records that the Young v. Rice balancing test treats as releasable.
Q: What about my home address and personal phone?
A: Those are exempt under § 25-19-105(b)(13). The custodian should redact them before release.
Q: Does it matter that the requester is using my information to harass me?
A: Under FOIA analysis, no. Requester motive is irrelevant. If conduct constitutes actual harassment, address it through workplace HR, criminal complaint, or civil restraining order channels, not by trying to block the FOIA release.
Q: I'm an applicant, not an employee. Are my application materials public?
A: That depends on whether you are an internal candidate (already employed by the agency) and whether you were the successful applicant. See AG opinion 2024-096 for the framework. For external unsuccessful applicants, AG review jurisdiction is limited.
Q: Can I see the AG's opinion before the records are released?
A: § 25-19-105(c)(3)(B)(i) gives you the right to request an AG opinion within a defined window. The custodian must hold the records during the AG review.
Q: What if my records have things beyond compensation in them?
A: The AG opinion only blesses the categories Ramirez listed (compensation, hire date, position). Other fields might separately require analysis (medical info, disciplinary records, etc.). The custodian should treat those discretely.
Background and statutory framework
Arkansas's FOIA at § 25-19-101 et seq. presumes public records are open. Section 25-19-105(b)(12) creates an exception for personnel records "to the extent that disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." That exception is interpreted under the two-step balancing test from Young v. Rice, 308 Ark. 593, 826 S.W.2d 252 (1992).
Step one asks whether the information is of a "personal or intimate nature" giving rise to a greater than minimal privacy interest. Compensation amounts are not personal or intimate; they are how the public's money gets spent. The line of AG opinions stretching from the 1990s through 2024 reaches this same conclusion consistently (see citations above).
Step two, applied only if step one is met, weighs that privacy interest against the public's interest in disclosure. The Court in Young described the scale as tipped toward access.
Section 25-19-105(c)(3)(B)(i) gives the subject of personnel or evaluation records the right to ask the AG for an opinion on a custodian's release decision. Ramirez exercised that right.
Section 25-19-105(b)(13) carves out personal contact information (home address, personal email, personal phone) from disclosure. That carve-out is independent of the (b)(12) personnel records balancing.
Citations and references
Statutes:
- A.C.A. § 25-19-105 (FOIA exemptions and personnel records)
Cases:
- Young v. Rice, 308 Ark. 593, 826 S.W.2d 252 (1992) (two-step balancing test)
Prior AG opinions on compensation disclosure:
- 2024-022, 2022-039, 2021-084, 2019-008, 2018-093, 2016-103, 2012-014, 2011-132, 2011-114, 2007-070, 2005-057, 2002-107, 98-126, 96-205, 95-220, 90-335
Source
Original opinion text
Opinion No. 2025-007
January 22, 2025
Rodolfo Ramirez
Via email only: [email protected]
Dear Mr. Ramirez:
You have requested an opinion regarding the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Your
request, which is made as the subject of personnel and employee-evaluation records, is based on
A.C.A. § 25-19-105(c)(3)(B)(i).
You have provided me with a notice from your employer, the Jacksonville Housing Authority, in
which you were informed that a FOIA request had been made for multiple employees' "2024
compensation, including first name, middle initial, last name, hire date, base salary amount, bonus
amount, overtime amount, gross annual wages, and position title." The custodian has identified
responsive records and believes those records are not exempt from disclosure.
I have not been provided with the records that the custodian intends to disclose. I have been
provided with a spreadsheet that is not filled out but that includes columns for: "Last Name," "First
Name," "Middle Initial," "Year of Compensation," "Date Hired," "Base Salary," "Full-time,"
"Part-time," "Bonus Amount," "Overtime Amount," "Gross Annual Wages," and "Position Title."
RESPONSE
This office has regularly opined that records identifying a nonelected employee's name,
compensation, hire date, and position are considered personnel records.1 Under the FOIA,
personnel records must be disclosed unless "that disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy."2
This office has also opined that the release of a public employee's name, compensation, hire date,
and position do not generally "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy"
1 Ark. Att'y Gen. Ops. 2024-022, 2022-039, 2021-084, 2012-014, 2011-132, 2002-107, 98-126, 96-205.
2 A.C.A. § 25-19-105(b)(12); see also Young v. Rice, 308 Ark. 593, 826 S.W.2d 252 (1992) (applying a two-step
balancing test that weighs the public's interest in accessing the records against the individual's interest in keeping
them private).
Rodolfo Ramirez
Opinion No. 2025-007
Page 2
and are generally subject to disclosure.3 Although I cannot opine on the records the custodian intends
to disclose—because I have not received them—I can opine that disclosing the categories of
information the custodian intends to disclose are consistent with the FOIA.
Deputy Attorney General Noah P. Watson prepared this opinion, which I hereby approve.
Sincerely,
TIM GRIFFIN
Attorney General
3 E.g., Ark. Att'y Gen. Ops. 2024-022, 2022-039, 2019-008, 2018-093, 2016-103, 2011-114, 2007-070, 2005-057,
95-220, 90-335.