State orders California cities to disclose salaries

August 3, 2010

California Controller John Chiang

In response to the scandal over salaries in Bell, State Controller John Chiang announced Tuesday that he would be posting salary information for elected city officials and other employees on his website beginning in November.  [LATimes]

“The absence of transparency is a breeding ground for waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” said Chiang, who is running for re-election. “A single website with accessible information will make sure that excessive pay is no longer able to escape public scrutiny and accountability.”

Currently, local governments are required to provide summary information about revenue and expenses to the state. Payroll information is included in total amounts, but not itemized.

The new rules will require compensations for reach category of local official to be provided to the state.

“We have to make sure people aren’t moving categories or hiding what they are being paid,” Chiang said in an interview. “We want to put it in a format people understand.”


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Privatization is the ANSWER HERE.

A famous frenchman touring America in the 1800’s once said: Your Democracy

will work really good until you get 51% of your people on the system, at that point they

will be able to vote themselves all the PAYOLA they can get.


We must circulate a petition to PRIVATIZE the gov’t work force, and FORCE competitive

bidding on all gov’t jobs, except elected officials. Unions and ALL other workers must “bid”

on the jobs, with no special requirements of PRE – TRAINING, or UNION membership

other wise THEY will remain in control. GOV”T servants are supposed to SERVE US not US

serve them. They must always earn LESS than us, not MORE….that is the definition of SERVANT.


This is a start, but not enough.

The ACTUAL wages and benefits paid for the year for ALL of gov’t workers individually must be printed. If you simply print the wage scale, or wage rate, instead of the amount actually gouged,

then the “hidden” pay will still continue, along with the bilking or milking of us all.


Long overdue. IMHO, in todays economic crisis and the evironment of over paid salaries and pensions, (like the City of Bell), I predict an back lash and a possible revision of the Calpers process…


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