Payrolls

- The Orioles expect a sizable increase to their payroll for next season because of significant raises due to their nine arbitration-eligible players, but don't expect the Orioles to join the big spenders of the American League East. Dan Duquette , the Orioles executive vice president of baseball operations, told reporters on the opening day of the winter meetings on Monday night that he expected $22 million in salary raises to arbitration eligible players, among them catcher Matt Wieters , closer Jim Johnson and outfielder/designated hitter Chris Davis . That will increase the team's payroll from last year, when the Orioles' $81 million payroll was ranked 19th among Major League Baseball's 30 clubs.

Let the debate begin in earnest about the decision by the Orioles to cut loose first baseman Mark Reynolds. Reynolds is a free agent today because he stood to make about $9 million next year following salary arbitration. He earned $7.5 million during a 2012 campaign in which his offensive numbers sagged but his defensive value surged with a very successful transition from third base to first, leaving club officials with a tough call. They had to decide before Friday night's deadline for tendering contracts to arbitration-eligible players whether Reynolds' overall contribution to the team's winning chemistry last year would be worth nearly a 10th of the Orioles' total payroll in 2013.

However one looks at last Friday's jobs report, it's a stunning reminder of how anemic the recovery has been -- and how perilously close America is to falling into another recession. Not only has the unemployment rate risen for the first time in almost a year, to 8.2 percent, but, more ominously, May's payroll survey showed that employers created only 69,000 net new jobs. The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised its March and April reports downward. Only 96,000 new jobs have been created, on average, over the last three months.

A computer thumb drive that was lost in the mail with the names, Social Security numbers and salaries of some Under Armour employees was being sent between two offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers, an auditing firm used by the Baltimore-based sports apparel company, an Under Armour official said Monday. "The thumb drive was not mailed from Under Armour to PwC. It was mailed between PwC offices," Under Armour spokeswoman Diane Pelkey said in an email. The breach of payroll data was first reported by Ohio's Dayton Daily News, which last week obtained an internal memo sent by Under Armour to its employees about the incident.

The names, Social Security numbers and salary information of an unknown number of Under Armour employees might have been exposed when a thumb drive containing payroll information was lost in the U.S. mail, according to a published report in Ohio. The Dayton Daily News obtained an internal memo from the Baltimore-based sports apparel maker to its employees last week. The emailed memo reported that an unencrypted thumb drive containing employee payroll information was lost in the mail on or about April 12. The thumb drive was sent by mail to Under Armour's auditing firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, in connection with an audit.

Last year, we wrote about Kim Parr, who was laid off from her teaching position at the Baltimore School for the Arts amid budget cuts. Students marched down to City Hall to save the visual arts teacher of 27 years, and the layoffs--she was one of three--caused quite a stir at the school. I was happy to hear that Parr was moving on last fall, after she went through what she described in one of our articles as a devastating process of severing ties with the district. But, in a strange twist, it seems the district wasn't ready to sever ties with her. Since last fall, I've been in communication with Parr about some bizarre happenings since she was laid off. In a letter to city schools CEO Andres Alonso on Monday, Parr outlined the chain of events much better than I can...so, I'll just include exerpts here.  The district did not immediately respond for comment.

While it's ill-advised to read too much into any weekly or monthly report on the nation's jobs outlook, the latest unemployment numbers are heartening, not merely because weekly applications for unemployment benefits fell to a four-year low but because that news follows an unmistakably positive trend. An increase in the rate of economic expansion - estimated at nearly 3 percent in the final three months of last year - has given rise to the improvement. But that's not exactly cause for celebration, as the U.S. unemployment rate remains relatively high at 8.3 percent as of last month (and that's not counting those who have given up looking for work)

Eight of Maryland's 10 members of Congress voted against a bi-partisan plan Friday to extend a national payroll tax holiday - including two who were instrumental in crafting the deal - citing concern over how the measure would affect federal employees. The only Maryland Democrat to support the measure, which ultimately passed both chambers, was Baltimore County Rep.C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger. The deal was also supported by Republican Rep.Roscoe G. Bartlett, who said he almost changed his vote.

New federal employees would contribute more than triple the amount paid by current government workers for their retirement under an agreement reached in Congress, according to two Maryland lawmakers who helped craft the deal to extend a payroll tax break and unemployment benefits. The provision, which faced immediate pushback from public employee unions, would contribute $15 billion to the $140 billion cost over the next decade by requiring civilian employees hired after this year to chip in 3.1 percent of their pay to their retirement instead of the current 0.8 percent.

Federal employees will be required to contribute $15 billion toward the cost of extending federal unemployment insurance under a tentative agreement struck in Congress that would also maintain the 2010 payroll tax break, federal worker union officials said Wednesday. The deal, which lawmakers have cautioned is still tentative, would require employees to contribute an additional eight tenths of one percent to their retirement funds. The money generated from that provision would cover roughly half of the $30 billion cost of extending long-term unemployment benefits.