Transparent California

The official Twitter account for Transparent California — the state's largest public pay and pension database. Visit our blog at:

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

In 2024 the median total compensation of a full-time certificated employee (generally teachers) in CA was $149,460. From public pay records obtained using legal public records act request, and posted on @Transparent_CA for anyone to review.

According to data from the US Census Bureau, teacher comp is now $37,879 higher than comparably educated private employees.

Yet education is so bad that in the state less than 50% of our kids are proficient in English, and less than 60% proficient in Math.

Isn't taking money from people and not delivering the service you promised a crime?

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

@PolicyProtest @MatrixMysteries What would be funny, if it were not sad, is the fact that those records have been publicly available for over a decade (on @Transparent_CA), but not one single past mayor of the city has done a thing.

Not a thing....

[Lance Christensen @lancelands]

A dozen years ago, I cowrote this piece with @reasonpolicy on the best practices in pension reform while at @ReasonPensions. I reviewed it this morning while thinking about the abominations of AB 1383 & AB 1054 in the #caleg. Amazingly, it still holds up. https://t.co/F6OlBLOLan

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

A recent interview of our Director of Research done by Philip Stemler, a great parent activist in the @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...

https://t.co/8A05NdBxHj

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

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 @ActionNewsNow 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://t.co/weoRFGyxfJ. That not only provides funding but prioritizes the collection of the agency’s data in our systems.

https://t.co/BVg7FJ9bYW

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

@ChrisBaylor5 @weimdog @lancelands @WillSwaim In the case of school districts, to set that minimum we use the state's "J90" reporting, which gives each district's minimum teacher salary.

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

Sorry, I was traveling a bit and out of touch.

Yes, as Lance says, our data comes from actual pay records, obtained from the agencies through Public Records Act request. It's what goes into employee bank accounts, so it's about as accurate as one can get.

Median is a calculation in Excel. You would need to download the data set you're interested in and then do that calculation. When we do this, we exclude anyone who did not make the minimum wage for that job - either the actual minimum wage, or the minimum pay reported by that agency for that job. If they did not make the minimum, they did not work a full year (or full time), so their pay does not represent "what that job pays"

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

@weimdog @lancelands @ChrisBaylor5 @WillSwaim That's the median total comp of a teacher in CA in 2024. Median meaning half make more, half make less....

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

@ChrisBaylor5 @scottyd121 @WillSwaim No idea what Grok includes. The actual comp numbers are on our site, so perhaps Grok is using that. If it's not, then it's not looking at real data.

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

The $30K/year a teacher gets in contributions to retirement from their district, if invested in an average mutual fund for a 30 year career, is worth about $2 million.

Yet teachers will tell you (when negotiating) "that doesn't mean anything because I can't buy groceries with it."

I always suggest they ask someone who is retired what they are buying groceries with.

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

To throw down some real numbers here – based on actual pay records, not paper schedules…

We’ve got 226,022 in the data for 2024 now. That’s 83% of what we expect to be the final total. Still collecting, not done yet. 2025 is not available yet.

In 2024, median total pay of this group was $113,051. Median total comp (including cost of benefits) $149,396.

11,557 made total comp >=$200K, slightly over 5%

“Base pay” is meaningless because teacher benefits greatly exceed the cost of private benefits to the employer. What is relevant is what a private employee would have to make to match the teacher’s take-home, taking money out of their pay to fund their own retirement and healthcare to the same level.

That number is easy to calc for retirement – teachers get a contribution from the district equal to 30% of their salary put into CalSTRS, private employees get 10% (6.2 SS and a 3-4% 401K match). That means a teacher making $113K is getting $22,600 more than the private employee.

Add to this the approx. $6K/year private employees have to contribute to healthcare insurance, so the teacher benefit advantage is about $30,000/year.

Which means for a private employee to take home the same money – to fund their kids college, their cars, their vacations, etc equally, they would have to make $143,000.

Median pay of a private employee with education comparable to a teacher – according to the US Census Bureau – was $98,980, so teachers are making a bit over $44,000/year more than they would make working in private industry.

Yet the union myth is “teachers are underpaid”, and they have free reign to hold the education of kids hostage to demands for more.

Our society is sick.

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

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 @markkersey 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.

https://t.co/hrDedwCT77

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

Kudos to the @voiceofsandiego for pressing this issue on behalf of us all, and to lawyer @FelixTinkov 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. "

https://t.co/RcwPMtsFUk

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

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 @mcolleen1996 and @charobs for taking advantage of our work!

https://t.co/c1SRj2NEnb

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

TransCal in the News!

"What does Natomas Unified’s top administrator make? Robyn Castillo received a salary of $314,200 in 2024 with a total compensation package worth $416,000, according to Transparent California."

Thanks to @jennahpen of the @sacbee_news for using our data!

Unfortunately earlier in the article they say "What do Natomas teachers make now? Natomas teacher salaries start at $56,000 and cap at $121,000. The median teacher salary in the district is $91,000, according to 2024-25 data."

Which is wrong. In 2024 the median pay of a full-time certificated employee in Natomas Unified was actually $97,135, at least if you believe the data provided to us is accurate. We don't have 2025 yet but it's unlikely that number would be lower a year later.

We've notified the Bee on that and submitted a letter to the editor clarifying, however have gotten no response.

https://t.co/NfnwGEjFZw

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

TransCal In the News!

"According to Transparent California, average public employee compensation now is six figures per year.

When unions secure higher salaries and richer benefits, those costs do not disappear. They show up as higher taxes, expanding government budgets, and massive pension obligations that taxpayers will be forced to cover."

Thanks to @FlashReport and @californiapost for making use of our data!

https://t.co/4712YK9tqa

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

TransCal in the News!

"The following financial information was sourced from Transparent California"

Thanks to @drewaskeland of the @ReddingNewsFeed for making use of our data!

https://t.co/vZqZP1wBJ5

[Transparent California @Transparent_CA]

TransCal in the News!

"Manivong had worked as a Redding equipment operator for several years, according to Transparent California, a database of government employee compensation."

Thanks to @MicheleChloe and the @ReddingNewsFeed for using our data!

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

https://t.co/UcM4LgzdOv