In 2010, State Controller John Chiang launched an online resource dedicated to unveiling the salaries of local government officials. This move to increase transparency was the end result of his previous ordering of cities, counties and special districts to report payroll data to the state.

It was announced today that the site has recently upgraded custom report-building tools that will help users analyze the health and retirement costs associated with public sector positions. This update covers calendar year 2012.

“To have a more effective and responsive government, we must provide Californians with increasing access to the details of how their tax dollars are spent,” said Chiang.

Since the site’s launch in 2010, it has registered more than 6.7 million page views online. The Controller completed an overhaul of the public website in late 2012, adding additional search, browse, and mapping functions.

Those visiting publicpay.ca.gov can:

  • View compensation levels on map graphics, and search for compensation by region
  • Develop charts, trend-line and trend graphs
  • Quickly see lists of top earners at cities, counties, and other local governments
  • Generate side-by-side comparisons of local government payrolls
  • Create local agency summaries
  • Export custom reports or raw data from the site

Today’s updates also allow users to create charts, graphs and reports that focus exclusively on health and retirement costs for public positions. For more information, a series of video tutorials is available to guide users through the new site’s interface.

In August, the site was updated to include State and California State University (CSU) employees. In this latest update, Chiang has included with the latest wage and benefit data for Community College employees as well.

“Thanks to the leadership and support of Community Colleges Chancellor Brice Harris, we are able to include the most recent wage and pension data for employees of the largest system of higher education in the world,” stated Chiang.

The inclusion of Community College districts adds wage and benefit data for 149,342 positions, with approximately $4.3 billion in wages paid during 2012 and $930 million of reported health and retirement costs. Sixty-six districts submitted wages for today’s update.