Since your salary is "ours", you need to ask permission to use "my" part of it, right?
Well, in the purest sense, you can either have the labor or the salary, but are not entitled to both. The people have a say in the labor from which the salary is derived. Once you have the labor you cannot have say on how the salary is spent (since it originated from the people). Conversely, if you are unwilling to disperse salary, then you have no say in how the labor is conducted (at which point, I'd probably fire the guy).
Sorry to nerd out, lol.