Transparent California

A recent interview of our Director of Research done by Philip Stemler, a great parent activist in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District - NMUSD school district.

Can you imagine the revolution we'd see in quality of K12 education if we put our superintendents on a bonus plan that gave them a significant bump if they actually improved education?

But that's not what our education system is designed to do, right? It's all about making sure the adults are taken care of, not the kids...

"Without data, you're just another guy with an opinion" Transparent California's Director of Research, Todd Maddison, on shining a light on school spending.

TransCal in the News!

"Patrick Jones, a former supervisor and mayor of Redding, said he discovered the issue while reviewing public salary data on Transparent California, a database that tracks government pay. Jones said Sheriff Michael Johnson's total pay was listed at about $445,000, with no benefits shown in that breakdown."

Thanks to Emilio Del Carpio and Action News Now for using our data!

It's a little hard to imagine the elected officials in any agency in the state would not know that their employees are making almost a half million dollars, especially given the most important task of any city council, school board, or board of Supervisors has is making sure their organization is financially responsible,, but at Transparent California we know how common that is.

Can you imagine the impact if every single agency in the state had someone stand up at their next meeting and simply spend three minutes reading names and pay - from highest downward - from our website? NO one could say "we didn't know" at that point.

And they won't like it, because that would be "holding them accountable." Our own Director of Research once did annual presentations to his local school board - putting images of the site into Power Point presentations and forcing the board to sit through three minutes of proof of their lack of fiscal responsibility.

The result was not, of course, more attention to where our money was going. The result was the Board making a rule change to ban the public from making screen presentations at board meetings...

If you’d like to see more data like this, you can help by sponsoring data collection for your favorite public agency at https://transparentcalifornia.com/sponsor/. That not only provides funding but prioritizes the collection of the agency’s data in our systems.

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/former-shasta-county-supervisor-questions-sheriffs-445k-pay-structure/article_d67b52a2-50d1-4bc3-b711-cd12a3155d58.html

Former Shasta County supervisor questions sheriff's $445K pay structure A former Shasta County supervisor is raising questions about Sheriff Michael Johnson's pay structure after spotting what he believes may be an issue in public salary data. Johnson says his

Imagine that. The City of San Diego's money shortfall is NOT driven by a lack of tax revenue, but massively wasteful overspending.

Who could possibly have guessed that?

"The association’s analysis found that the city has been overprojecting its revenue since 2020, and they have a $1 billion backlog of deferred maintenance and $7.8 billion in projected infrastructure spending.

“That money just doesn’t exist, or not all of it anyway,” Kersey said.

He added that city staffing has grown four times faster than the city’s population, with a focus on middle management positions."

Thanks to Mark Kersey and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association for digging into this and proving something that I think should be pretty much obvious to everyone.

And it is, to people who know the data on Transparent California. Which is probably the exact same thing for your own city, county, school district, or public agency. Most of which prioritize "high paying jobs for themselves and their friends" over providing services to residents.

We should be DEMANDING our government make cuts, not complaining when that happens.

‘Self-inflicted wounds’: Independent budget review shows city’s staffing has grown 4x faster than population The City of San Diego is facing a $120 million budget shortfall, leading to potential layoffs, cuts to programs, and fee increases, according to a new non-partisan report from the San Diego County Tax...

Kudos to the Voice of San Diego for pressing this issue on behalf of us all, and to lawyer Felix Tinkov for helping us all fight for what is right.

"Voice’s lawsuit filed in Superior Court on Friday marks the latest legal dispute between the county and Voice of San Diego over public records. It comes as County Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer gears up to pitch the need for a ballot measure to improve transparency and she and her colleagues often cite the public’s support for a more open county government. But county leaders are often not choosing transparency on public records. "

As County Leaders Tout Transparency, They Fight Public Records Releases Voice of San Diego last week sued the county to try to force the release of complaints against an ex-county contractor, marking the latest legal wrangling with the county over public records.

TransCal in the News! Even in Charlotte, North Carolina!

"Further west, many employees of California’s Santa Clara County, home to San Jose, were making more than those working similar jobs in Mecklenburg County. Santa Clara’s top leadership, a county chief operating officer and county executive, both make more than Bryant, according to 2024 data from the nonprofit Transparent California. Those San Jose-area leaders made $459,573.09 and $492,047.05, respectively, that year."

We're glad to see our data being used not just locally or regionally, but nationally! Thanks to Mary Ramsey and The Charlotte Observer
for taking advantage of our work!

How do Mecklenburg government salaries stack up? 1,000 people make six figures The Observer compared Mecklenburg County government salaries to the most recent data available for comparable jobs in peer counties.