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Governor: City salaries should be placed online

July 30, 2010

In the wake of the recent pay scandal involving Bell city officials, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday that if local governments have “nothing to hide,” they should post the salaries of top officials online. [LA Times]

The governor’s remarks came as city managers from across California are meeting in Sacramento to discuss damage control to the scandal that erupted this month. Reporting by the Times reveal that the Bell city manager made in excess of $800,000 a year and that city council members were being paid $100,000 annually.

“The people should start asking themselves what are their city officials, what are their county officials getting paid,” Schwarzenegger told a group of business leaders at round-table discussion in San Diego.

Schwarzenegger said outrage over the scandal in Bell has the public calling cities and counties demanding to know what officials are being paid. Local governments should act first, the governor argued, and put information on line so people don’t have to call to get information they need.


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Fleecing of the taxpayers by politicians. Nothing new here.


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All public employee salaries and benefits should be available online for public viewing. No one needs to name names, but we all have the right as taxpayers to know how much is being paid for a given job and much is being wasted…

Especially here in SLO County where the major employers are the State or the County… Chancellor Baker had an obscene salary and benefit package and he just ran a school with 15,000 students. His salary package was on par with many fortune 500 managers who had many more employees and a much higher budget.


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Bell is a city smaller and less populated than SLO. The ballot measure placed on a ballot by the greedy Bell leaders (to allow getting around limits on pay) at the time, was voted on by only 400 residents. The locals were like those in many small towns: ignorant, or choosing to be.


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Are there no newspapers in Bell? How could this get past even a rookie reporter? Salaries are listed in city and county budgets. Arnold should turn the spotlight on state workers and what they are being paid too.


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Paperboys-Salaries are listed, although you will find it very difficult to find out what the benefit packages along with other “perks” and bonuses are to get to the final amount paid out. Usually those “beenfit” packages range in excess of 50% of the listed salaries. Take a look and see what you find.


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Exactly. Bell isn’t the only place where bloated salaries are bringing things down. What we have had is an arms race of money-each little town raising its pay to attract ‘quality’ people in management etc. Bull, there are plenty of talented and hard working folks who will work for a paltry 70-100 grand.


What we are seeing is a small example of the bloated pay to money firm managers. Everyone should cut back, drastically.


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