Press Releases

SACRAMENTO — State Controller Malia M. Cohen today published the 2023 self-reported payroll data for California special districts on the Government Compensation in California (GCC) website. The data covers 161,903 positions and a total of over $10.79 billion in 2023 wages with over $3 billion in health and retirement costs for 3,046 special districts.

Special districts are governmental entities created by residents of a local community to deliver specialized services. Data for 2023 shows the top 10 districts by total wages are transportation, health care, water, and fire districts. The top 10 individual salaries reported all are in health care districts.

California law requires cities, counties, and special districts to annually report compensation data to the State Controller. The State Controller also maintains and publishes state and California State University salary data. One hundred and twenty four special districts either did not file or filed a report that was non-compliant.

The GCC site contains pay and benefit information on more than two million government jobs in California, as reported annually by each entity.

Users of the site can:

• View compensation levels on maps and search by region;
• Narrow results by name of the district or by job title; and
• Export raw data or custom reports.

As the chief fiscal officer of California, Controller Cohen 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. Follow the Controller on X at @CAController and on Facebook at California State Controller’s Office.

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