Nearly eight months after the reports were due, San Juan
Bautista remains the only city in California listed as filing
”
non-compliant
”
salary and compensation reports with the state Controller’s
Office and could face a fine for its delinquency.
Nearly eight months after the reports were due, San Juan Bautista remains the only city in California listed as filing “non-compliant” salary and compensation reports with the state Controller’s Office and could face a fine for its delinquency.
Two cities – Fort Jones and Tulelake – have not filed the reports at all, but all cities other than San Juan and all counties around California have complied with the rules designed to make the financial dealings of government agencies more transparent. Tulelake has been fined by the state for its lateness; Fort Jones has not.
“It’s a deadline for a reason,” said Jacob Roper of the State Controller’s Office. “That’s the responsibility of every local agency. We have notified everybody with letters and reached out over the phone with most non-compliant entities. We’ve really gone out of our way to work with them.”
City Manager Steve Julian responded by saying the city filed the complete documents and he hadn’t heard anything from the State Controller’s Office.
“It was turned in – the mistake is with the state controller,” Julian said Wednesday.
Julain continued: “We didn’t know until we read it in the newspaper. As far as I know, our office sent it out.”
The Free Lance has submitted a California Public Records Act request to San Juan requesting compensation information of every employee working for the city.
The Local Government Compensation Reporting site, unveiled in October, includes minimum and maximum salary ranges, actual wages paid, retirement formulas, pension information and payments for health benefits for elected officials and public employees.
The “absence of transparency and accountability,” State Controller John Chiang said at the time the program was unveiled, “invites corruption, self-dealing and the abuse of public funds.” The site, he added, lets taxpayers scrutinize local government compensation and will “force public officials to account for how they spend public resources.”
Roper, who noted that a $5,000 possible penalty noted on the Controller’s website “hasn’t been levied against (San Juan) at this time,” said his office’s “first goal is to make all information available to the public.
“The real goal is not to fine,” he continued. “The real goal is to get as much information up as possible. The more information local voters have to hold their local elected officials accountable, the better. We want to make sure individuals have the information necessary to look at how their tax dollars are being used.”
Julian said during an October 2010 interview that he had hoped to have the information sent to the state “by the end of the day,” adding that he was “aware that it needed to be filed.”
Seven months later, the only record the State Controller’s Office has of compensation reports from San Juan Bautista is “a cover letter, but not the report behind it,” according to Roper. Receipt of the cover letter is the only reason the city is not noted on the list of cities failing to file the required reports.
Various government agencies around San Benito County have made their compensation information available to the state, including the City of Hollister, County of San Benito and the San Benito Health Care District, which includes Hazel Hawkins Hospital. Since last October, the state has posted 847,000 payroll records representing $47 billion in wages. More than 3,000 special districts alone have filed or will be filing their compensation information with the state.
Local salaries are not set or approved by the state, Roper said, which makes it the responsibility of cities, counties and special districts to be as forthcoming as possible with that information to ensure an informed citizenry.
To see the salary and compensation information on the State Controller’s website, go to http://lgcr.sco.ca.gov.
