The Los Angeles County Fire Department will ask voters to approve a property tax hike in March. The department has cited an increase in medical calls, as well as the need for […]
LA Times misleads on upcoming tax hike
Court ruling in CalPERS lawsuit threatens to gut California’s public records law
This commentary was first published by the San Diego Union-Tribune It is going to be much easier for California governments to hide their affairs from the public if the legal standard put […]
FBI special agent still collecting CalPERS disability pension
In an op-ed for today’s San Diego Union-Tribune, I describe how the recent court ruling in our CalPERS lawsuit will be used to undermine governmental transparency across the state. I also take aim at […]
California’s 100k club grows as tax hikes mount
Our recent report on California’s exploding $100K club has generated quite a bit of coverage, perhaps none better than the recent Orange County Register editorial, “California’s 100k club grows as tax hikes mount.” The editorial […]
Central San gives up its crown
In 2015, we wrote about the unfairness of a proposed rate hike by Central San, while the district was simultaneously spending ratepayer money on things like “Rolls-Royce-style health, dental and vision insurance […]
TransCal in the news, July 2019 edition
Transparent California continues to help inform the discussion over a variety of public pay issues. Here are some of the more recent examples: Transcal data featured at the top of Politico’s daily […]
LA has been violating state law for the past 10 years
Readers may have noticed that the 2017 Transparent California data for Los Angeles does not include the cost of benefits. The LA Daily News article, LA hides health care costs for individual employees […]
San Diego to report full compensation next year
We are pleased to learn that the City of San Diego will finally provide complete employee compensation data when they submit their 2018 data to us later this year. San Diego’s pension […]
LA Times: Some pensions are so huge they exceed IRS limits, costing taxpayers millions extra
Great article in today’s LA Times that highlights how California public pension plans get around IRS limits designed to limit pensions to approximately $210,000 or less: Dozens of retired Los Angeles employees […]
John and Ken Show 7/23/18
The good folks over at the John and Ken show had me on yesterday to discuss our latest report, in which we documented a nearly 900% increase in promised CalPERS pension benefits over […]