California’s special districts submit salary data to state controller

Last October, the state controller's website posted salary data for city and county employees in California. Now it’s time for “special districts” to post their data on the controller’s website.

There’s interesting stuff in the salary reports from water, fire and waste management districts, like this: it costs about $13,000 a year to pay health care benefits for just about anybody with a full-time job at a special district. Or this: nearly every Orange County firefighter clocks in a lot of overtime.

And there’s this: at San Bernardino County’s Cucamonga Valley Water District, the general manager gets paid $344,000 a year; his counterpart at Riverside County’s East Municipal Water District makes $100,000 less, even though his agency serves three times as many customers.

The state controller's website doesn’t list all the special district salary data online. Some won’t send it in until June.

The Controller also lists dozens of water, fire and waste management districts as “non-compliant.” They didn’t send in their data, or didn’t send in enough – and they risk fines until they do.