Find Salaries of Nearby Pols and other LBS News

For The Good of Illinois, an open-government group founded by former gubernatorial hopeful Adam Andrzejewski, has a free iPhone and iPad app that, with the touch of a button, will show you the salaries of government employees in your area.

Using your device's GPS coordinates, the app will list, from highest to lowest, the pay of state and local government employees within a radius of five, 10, 25 or 50 miles. Or you can input a ZIP code, rather than using your current location. Employees also can be searched by name.

Local (City/County/State) GIS Tidbits - 4/22/11

Minnesota transportation officials are looking for a few good drivers for a test program that might someday lead to a mileage-based tax.

The 500 volunteers needed in Hennepin and Wright counties will use GPS-equipped smartphones to record and submit travel information. The idea is to see how well such a system works.

The state is looking ahead to a time when so many electric and hybrid vehicles are on the roads that a gas tax no longer nets enough money to build and maintain roads. A mileage tax would collect money based on how many miles someone drives rather than on how much gas they use.

- Daily Journal

For Mike Munda, it’s the variety of tasks that make up his work as Stephenson County’s [IL] GIS technician that keeps him constantly engaged in his job.

Not only does Munda oversee the technical aspects of the local Geographic Information System (GIS), but he also works on special mapping projects, completes graphic design and database support work for the county, and serves as the county’s “go-to guy” for many Information Technology issues.

...

On April 13, Munda was presented with the 2011 Leadership Award by County Board Chairman John Blum. The award is given out annually during Blum’s State of the County Address, as a way to recognize county employees who have “exhibited outstanding leadership qualities,” Blum said.

- Journal Standard

Candidates are busy running for political office.

Paul Mathison, 51, is running, too -- not for office, but around the state to draw attention to a political issue. "The PennUltimate Run" took him through part of Erie County [PA] on Wednesday.

Mathison is running 1,000 miles around the state to raise awareness about the remapping of congressional and state legislative districts. He wants residents to push the Legislature and Gov. Tom Corbett to conduct the process openly and to produce compact districts.

- Erie Times News

Matt Bradbury, who volunteers in the Redlands, CA information technology department, was honored by the City Council on Tuesday as part of Volunteer Appreciation Month.

Bradbury is working with the city's GIS team creating a data model that "we will be able to use for years to come," said David Hexem, the city's chief information officer.

"He wanted to gain work experience in an environment where he could take on the workload but not the pressure of being an employee," Hexem said. "I'd hire him a second if we had an opening here."

- Press Enterprise