Expanding on a series of stories examining the cost of state government, The Providence Journal has requested salary, overtime and other earnings information for all municipal employees in the state.

Over the last three weekdays, the newspaper submitted public records request letters for employee databases to all 39 cities and towns, and the school districts that serve them. The letters were hand-delivered, except to Block Island, where they were sent by mail and fax.

Under the state Open Records Law, the cities, towns and school districts have 10 workdays to supply the records. When the 10-day deadline expires, on Sept. 4, The Journal will report on which communities have complied.

After all the information has been received, The Journal will publish a statewide report, as well as stories detailing municipal pay in area communities. The Journal’s Web site, projo.com, will post charts of expanded information for each community.

For each employee, The Journal is requesting the following information: full name, city or town of residence, date hired, job title, department and division in which the employee works, whether full time or part time, scheduled hours, annual salary and calendar year 2006 base pay, overtime, other pay and cost of fringe benefits.

The records law generally makes records about a specific employee off-limits. But it specifies that certain information, including what the newspaper is seeking, must be made public. The newspaper received the same information about all state employees.

In its look at state employees, the paper found, among other things, that some employees were paid more than twice their base pay in overtime in 2006 and that the highest state salaries go to state college employees, including the presidents of the three state colleges and the men’s basketball coach at the University of Rhode Island, who is the highest-paid state employee.

pparker@projo.com