City of Salem accidentally sent payroll information of 450 workers to former employee

Personal data for 450 former and current city of Salem employees was accidentally sent to a former employee in January due to a clerical error.

The city notified affected employees in a Feb. 21 letter from Payroll Supervisor Rhonda Miller but made no public announcement of the error. Salem Reporter obtained the letter Monday.

Roughly 400 of those affected are current city employees, city officials said. The information included employees in multiple city departments.

The pay statements were included in a file sent to a former employee on Jan. 21, according to the letter. 

That employee said they have since deleted the file, Miller said in the letter. The city sent out the letter as a precaution following a review of the incident.

Miller said the information was from pay statements for the pay date of March 29, 2024. 

Courtney Knox Busch, the city’s strategic initiatives manager, told Salem reporter in an email that the affected employees were not alerted to the error until a month later because the city had to investigate the incident, identify affected employees, and come up with a plan to avoid similar issues in the future. 

Compromised information included employees’ names, addresses, earnings and withholdings, bank names for deposits, and other data, Knox Busch said. 

The data did not include account numbers, Social Security numbers or phone numbers, Knox Busch said. 

“No personal identifiable information was released. As a result, no laws were violated due to this incident because the city elected to provide notice to the potentially affected employees and forward that notice to the Oregon Attorney General,” Knox Busch said in an email to Salem Reporter. “The notification explained what occurred, what information was released, how individual employees could assess their credit information, and offered to speak with employees who had questions or concerns.”

Knox Busch said the data breach was the result of a clerical error and that since then the city has retrained employees, and implemented new procedures that require certain information to be manually uploaded when attaching to an email. The city is also working on encrypting its processes for sensitive information, Knox Busch said. 

“The City has taken steps to prevent future occurrences, notified and apologized to the affected employees and is available to work with employees who have concerns or questions regarding the incident,” Knox Busch said. 

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

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