Press Releases

CA Controller Publishes 2018 Payroll
Data for City and County Governments

PR19:19
6/25/2019
Contact: Taryn Kinney
(916) 324-2709

SACRAMENTO — State Controller Betty T. Yee today published the 2018 self-reported payroll data for cities and counties on the Government Compensation in California website. The data cover 705,003 positions and a total of nearly $50 billion in 2018 wages for 54 counties and 467 cities.

Users of the site can:

  • See lists of top earners (including elected officials);
  • View compensation levels on maps and search by region;
  • Narrow results by name of the employer or by job title;
  • Build charts and graph trends; and
  • Export raw data or custom reports.

The highest paid county elected officials in 2018 represented the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura, and Alameda, and the top paid employees worked in Los Angeles County, Santa Clara County, and San Joaquin County. For cities in 2018, the highest paid elected officials were in Santa Clara, Redondo Beach, and Long Beach, and the top paid employees worked in Redlands, San Francisco, and Moreno Valley.

Three counties and 15 cities failed to file or provided incomplete or late information. A list of non-compliant entities is available here. San Francisco is both a city and a county; the website reports San Francisco as a city.

Since the website launched in 2010, it has more than 11 million pageviews. The site contains pay and benefit information on more than two million government jobs in California annually, as reported by each entity.

As the chief fiscal officer of California, Controller Yee is responsible for accountability and disbursement of the state’s financial resources. The Controller has independent auditing authority over government agencies that spend state funds. She is a member of numerous financing authorities, and fiscal and financial oversight entities including the Franchise Tax Board. She also serves on the boards for the nation’s two largest public pension funds. Elected in 2014 and reelected in 2018, Controller Yee is the tenth woman elected to a statewide office in California’s history. Follow the Controller on Twitter at @CAController and on Facebook at California State Controller’s Office.

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