The Contra Costa Times reported in early December that Yolo County was among four counties that had not provided data at all on 2009 salaries of all judges and employees in the court. This followed a request by the Bay Area News Group to apply California’s new judiciary adopted transparency rules.
It may be recalled that the Vanguard reported on this on December 18, 2010 and asked why Yolo County was stonewalling.
Shortly after, we received a response to our request and have discovered that Yolo County is not stonewalling at all, in fact they complied with the request on August 31.
The Contra Costa Times has obtained court information that includes all California judges and employees of appellate courts, the supreme court and the administrative office of the courts, and totals more than $1 billion in salaries for 15,377 employees.
It can be found at: ContraCostaTimes.com/court-employee-salaries, along with more than 900,000 other government workers’ salaries in California.
While judicial salaries have long been public because they are considered to be constitutional officers and thus paid for by the state controller’s office, now public for the first time is the pay of all court employees including clerks, lawyers, and administrators.
“They have no choice but to release the data,” said Peter Scheer who is the executive director of the First Amendment Coalition which specializes in issues of government transparency. “The new transparency rules are as good or better than the Public Records Act from which the courts are exempt.”
However, not all of the courts have complied. Yolo County was reported in the Contra Costa Times to be one of four counties that had not provided data at all, and five other counties have either dragged their feet or otherwise put up obstacles.
“Foot-dragging by nine counties’ courts, including Los Angeles, suggests that many judges are unhappy with the new transparency rules imposed on them from above last year by the California Judicial Council,” wrote Anne Lowe from Californians Aware, another organization that supports open government.
Los Angeles Court’s top official “Chief Executive Officer John Clarke, held meetings where he discussed how to ‘stonewall as long as possible’ the release of salary data.’ “
The article goes on to report, “The state’s largest court system ‘creates and condones a culture of secrecy’ and its leadership ‘is not interested in living within the spirit of the (transparency) rule,’ said the former spokesman, Alan Parachini. The court fired Parachini last month, alleging that he leaked confidential information to a tabloid website, an allegation he denies. He said he is considering legal action and his dismissal was really about attempts to make the court more transparent and to aid journalists in doing their jobs.”
It continues, “Clarke and other court officials, he said, wanted to ‘make it as hard as possible’ to access public information, in part by deciding to require requests be sent by postal mail and rejecting e-mailed requests. The irony, he added, is that the court is ‘a very responsible steward of public dollars’ and the unreleased data will show no salary abuses.”
But at least the Yolo County portion of this report appears to be inaccurate, according to a request that the Vanguard made following our December 18, 2010 story on Yolo County.
In an email from Shawn Landry, Assistant Court Executive Officer, he indicated that an email was sent to the Bay Area News Group and the Contra Costa Times in August.
Indeed, he sent the Vanguard a copy of that email.
The email contained the full listing of salaries for the Yolo County Court. Since the Vanguard likes to report on the 100K club of local government, we should note that the data we have does not include Judges, although it does include Janet Beronio, who is officially a Commissioner rather than a Judge, although she handles much of the arraignment proceedings.
These figures include base salary, overtime, and the “other” category that appears to be quite lucrative for some employees particularly for court reporters, some of whom make almost as much from selling their transcripts as they do in base salary.
100K Club of Yolo County Courts
Court Executive Officers – $191,483.99
Commissioner – $169,381.74
Commissioner – $157,539.76
Assistant Court Executive Officer – $143,603.26
Supervising Legal research Attorney – $119,954.23
Referee – $119,061.28
Human Resources Manager – $118,009.51
Court Reporter – $108,248.48
There are some interesting things that we find in those salary listings that we will look into. However, for our purposes today, it appears that the Yolo County officials complied with the records request.
When we went to the database, there was no listing for Yolo County. Clearly there is some miscommunication here.
An email to Thomas Peele, who heads up the project was not returned.
The Vanguard will continue to try to find answers to this question.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I find absolutely no justification within Rule 10.500 et. seq. to publish (per Peele’s e-mail): “(1) employee last name; (2) employee first name and middle initial.” If you find a direct citation to such a requirement, please, by all means, post it here. Beyond me why the employees haven’t sued to enjoin what is clearly an invasion of privacy.
You raise an interesting point as usual. I look at California Government Code Section 68106.2 as it is the authorizing document that submits the Judicial Council to make a rule allowing disclosure.
It allows: “Budgeted employee salary and benefit information by position classification consisting of the number of employees and compensation by classification, and any document, whether prepared periodically or for a special purpose, that shows any changes in salaried positions by classification available pursuant to subdivision (k) of Rule 10.802 of the California Rules of Court.”
That might imply only “by position classification”
However a later section clearly allows the court to provide more than this, “Nothing in this subdivision shall be construed to prevent or limit a court from, in its discretion, producing or creating a new document or data format, or otherwise providing additional information.”
They would obviously have to sue their employer, the problem is that under provisions of the California Public Records act, names of employees along with their salary information are disclosable, so I think they would lose a suit based on case law and current practices in other sectors of the government.
Easy “Neutral,” easy.
We’ve already had one error sorta admitted to regarding “stonewalling” that wasn’t. I’m sure an apology for that false characterization is coming soon. Don’t try to claim a privacy invasion for the revealing of a public employee’s name, for gosh sakes.
If Peele’s E-mail was sent on a government owned and maintained computer, the “invasion of privacy” argument for any E-mail content is not valid. There have been numerous court rulings saying that government employees, on government computers, on government time, cannot claim personal invasion of privacy while doing the government’s business.
The only qualifier to the above is that the government agency has to make a declaration of “no expectation of privacy” to its employees. At least that was the law the last time I visited it.
David: Even granting that the information is “disclosable”, I still object to what amounts to involuntarily publishing individual’s names absent a clear showing of necessity by the requestor.
There is huge difference between finding the proper government contact to resolve/assist with an issue, and an unrestricted data grab of every single State, County, and City worker in California.
That’s a long debate that has been going on for a couple of years in earnest. It’s not unrestricted in the sense that below name and salary the information is restricted. I believe there are probably some very good reasons to disclose the information. I’m simply not convinced that there is or should be an expectation of privacy if you are a government employee.
Let me give you an example, actually a couple to explain why I think we need names. One of the clerk reporters, the one I listed above made $55K in salary but $53K in others, I assume by profits from people purchasing court transcripts which is a huge racket in my opinion. For lengthy trials you may have to pay $20K for the court transcripts, all of which goes to the court reporter. Without the name, it would be difficult or more difficult to scrutinize the extra payments.
The same can be said in the city of Davis with overtime payments and the need to scrutinize those.
Now you might respond that under special circumstances – a need to know basis – I could get more information. But at that point it becomes a judgment for someone to make and I know longer have the right to those records, rather I can appeal for someone to grant them at their discretion which would mean I would almost never get them even when there is a really good reason to have them.
A name in my opinion is not private information. Phone numbers, addresses, socials, and the like are and should remain guarded, but not names.
dmg: “They would obviously have to sue their employer, the problem is that under provisions of the California Public Records act, names of employees along with their salary information are disclosable, so I think they would lose a suit based on case law and current practices in other sectors of the government.”
dmg: “”They have no choice but to release the data,” said Peter Scheer who is the executive director of the First Amendment Coalition which specializes in issues of government transparency. “The new transparency rules are as good or better than the Public Records Act from which the courts are exempt.””
If the courts are exempt from the Public Records Act, which I believe is absolutely correct, then case law and current practices in other sectors of the gov’t is irrelevant to what the courts would be required to do inre disclosure of court employee salaries…
dmg: “One of the clerk reporters, the one I listed above made $55K in salary but $53K in others, I assume by profits from people purchasing court transcripts which is a huge racket in my opinion.”
How sure are you that the court reporter is being paid all the money for the court transcript? When I went through my divorce (civil case), an attorney would insist on obtaining the court reporter himself (instructing clients they were not to obtain one on their own), charged clients twice or three times the court reporter’s normal transcription fee, and pocket anything over the normal court reporter’s fees.
Until reading your story today, David, I had not realized that on Yolo County’s page where they list salaries by position ([url]www.yolocounty.org/Index.aspx?page=1106[/url]), there are no listings for any of the court titles you list above (Court Executive Officer, Commissioner, Assistant Court Executive Officer, Supervising Legal Research Attorney, Referee, Human Resources Manager or Court Reporter).
In a general sense, I agree with “Neutral” that it does not serve a larger public purpose to report the salary of an individual, save in cases where the individual is in a top leadership position. My preference is that the public report just have the job title and income. I would add to that the total comp should be reported, including how much the agency is paying that year for pension contributions and how much it would be paying for retiree medical if it were fully funded.
However, I grant that the arguments you posit above (9:14 AM) make a good case for including the person’s name in some cases. Yet the point stands–those are exceptional cases. The majority of the time I think, because most people in most jobs consider how much they make a private matter, it’s just common decency to not publicly report their salary along with their name when it does not serve any larger purpose to attach that salary to a name.
Rifkin: “My preference is that the public report just have the job title and income.”
I agree. Report base salary and overtime separately, but leave the person’s name out of it…
[quote]I’m simply not convinced that there is or should be an expectation of privacy if you are a government employee. [/quote]If your thesis is that they are paid with “public money”, let’s extend that logic to any recipient of SS, SSI, welfare, and any other form of ‘public assistance’. In many cases they don’t even have to produce anything for the money, so why should they have any expectation of privacy.
To me, having classifications and compensation available is the spirit of the law. Besides, locally, Davis citizens could probably figure out classification/employee name, but at least folks in Singapore, Baghdad, Outer Mongolia wouldn’t have the personal information via the web.
I’m not following your logic. Government employees are paid for a task they perform. Social security recipients are paid as a result of paying into a system.
As a taxpayer, we are the employers of public employees.
Would you hire someone to mow your lawn or fix your sink without knowing the cost of the work?
We are completely entitled to know the salaries of each public employee.
The reason they object to this data is that they have something to hide:
Public employees are paid more than private counterparts for the equivalent work.
They are protected from layoffs and they have far better benefits and pensions.
They are bankrupting cities and public agencies.
Public employee unions are inherently corrupting and should be banned.
And hpierce, you make a good point. Any recipient of food stamps, SS, SSI, welfare and any other form of ‘public assistance’ should have their names and amount received publicly listed.
[quote]Social security recipients are paid as a result of paying into a system. [/quote]Wrong… most Social Security recipients today have or will draw much more out of benefits than they or their employers paid in… a subsidy funded by current workers… even more SSI recipients will have paid a tiny fraction of their benefits…
[quote]Social security recipients are paid as a result of paying into a system. [/quote]So have PERS, STRS employees and you publish those names of folks you believe get too much in retirement. Both PERS & STRS have (percentage) less unfunded liabilities than SS. Better yet, SS payees are only taxed on ~ 100K of income… those who earn more pay no taxes, but as I understand it, their retirement allotment continues to increase.
JR. ,
“”””””””They are bankrupting cities and public agencies.
Public employee unions are inherently corrupting and should be banned. “””””
Don’t you mean Wall Street and politicians !!!
There are two consequential and real problems with public employee associations:
1. Unlike a for-profit corporation or even a small business or even most private sector unions, the PEAs have often not seen by many people for what they are: self-interested. The self-interested teachers unions and fire unions and police benevolent associations and so on act as if they are just good-old-public citizens, motivated by a desire to improve education or make the public safer. The reality, of course, is that these PEAs have been robbing the public blind for 20-30 years, getting salaries and benefits and pensions and work rules that no one of their level in the private sector gets; and
2. The PEAs (very often) fund the campaigns of politicians (normally Democrats) who have no problem giving the PEAs sweetheart deals, screwing over the taxpayer interests they say they represent.
If everyone in and out of government simply regarded the PEAs the way most left-wingers view the Wall Street banks–as self-interested greedy bastards–then the cries for higher and higher pensions and more and more paid holidays and harder and harder circumstances for firing a lousy public employee would fall on deaf ears. The people on the whole would realize that the PEAs were out to do what every private entity is trying to do: take more for themselves.
And once that occurred, perhaps the public would be less likely to elect politicians who are tainted by PEA money and influence.
It is absolutely important to know how much we pay public employees to prevent graft. If you don’t like the public knowing how much they are paying you, then you can get a job in the private sector. Many of you seem to either forget or not want to bring up how prevalent it is. Look no further than a few months back at the city of Bell. Or is it that you think it can’t happen in our own neck of the woods? It’s happened all through out history.
“…some of whom make almost as much from selling their transcripts as they do in base salary.”
I don’t see why people would need to pay a court reporter for a transcript. If the court reporter is paid by tax payers to do the job of court reporting, it doesn’t seem right to charge extra for a transcript. They should be paid for only one or the other but not both. Otherwise it seems they are being paid twice for the same work.
I am a public employee, and I believe that those who pay me have every right to know how much, including the cost of benefits. The Sac Bee has a link to see the pay of state employees by name (although it is out of date and does not seem to include the cost of benefits.)
(I didn’t read all the posts, so please forgive me if I am repeating an idea.)
Please explain to me why it is necessary to know the Chief of Police whose name is Mr. John Doe is making $450,000; as opposed to the Chief of Police is making $450,000? If the public knows the position is what it is, and the salary for that position is what it is, why does the specific name of the employee even matter? Worse yet, why would you give out any personal information of this employee, such as address, phone #?
Lyah says: [quote]It is absolutely important to know how much we pay public employees to prevent graft. [/quote]Duh.. that’s what form 700 @ FPPC is about… on-line for all those who can influence/determine policy… or are you concerned about janitors, secretary’s graft and corruption? Get over yourself…
BTW… form 700 is on-line for the public to for most management, etc. city employees… it is a fair disclosure document… it gives enough disclosure re: possible conflicts of interest, but it seems that DMG & others believe all public employees should lie “naked” in the public eye. Fair enough… yet he is seeking tax-exempt status (which public employees do not have)… what does “transparency” mean, and who does it apply to?