And from the Coast News... "State public salary database Transparent California filed a lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court against the California Department of Education, alleging it blocked the release of superintendent and business officer contact information in Transparent’s public records requests. The lawsuit alleges state education officials have stopped releasing contact information that Transparent California says is necessary “as part of its ongoing effort to make government pay and pension data public.”" Thanks to the CalCoastNews for more of their excellent reporting on education issues in our state. This is why we're always looking for people who would like to donate to the cause. Doing this can be expensive, and your small donation can certainly help! thecoastnews.com/transparent…

"A watchdog group that publishes compensation data for California public officials has sued the state education department in San Diego court for refusing to provide key school officials’ contact information in a spreadsheet it needs to request pay details from districts and charter schools." Thanks to @Kristen_Taketa of @sdut for more of her excellent reporting on education issues in our state. This is why we're always looking for people who would like to donate to the cause. Doing this can be expensive, and your small donation can certainly help! transparentcalifornia.com/do… sandiegouniontribune.com/202…

This is exceptionally good news for the people of California. "On Sunday, Newsom vetoed AB 1383. The Governor did so despite the bill passing the Senate 33–0 and the Assembly 69–2, with overwhelming support from Republicans as well as Democrats." Amazing - a governor known as one who never saw a spending bill he didn't like is vetoing such a bill, and it's one that "most Republicans" actually forgot (deliberately, I'm sure) what they promised the people to get their vote and voted in favor of. Will wonders never cease? Thanks to @JonFleischman and the @FlashReport's "So, Does it Matter?" Yes, it does! open.substack.com/pub/sodoes…

TransCal in the news! "Last week the California Courier made public that while Fresno Unified School District cut $2.2 million in elementary field-trip funding and nearly 384 positions, their superintendent, Mao Misty, received $513,725 in total pay and benefits, sparking questions from parents about the district’s spending priorities. Superintendent Misty’s compensation included $386,045 in regular pay, $40,563 in other pay and $87,117 in benefits, according to Transparent California. The $513,725 figure represented total pay and benefits, not base salary." Thanks to @JeffBenziger of the @CeresCourier for using our data to call out local issues! cerescourier.com/opinion/edi…

TransCal in the News! "Public agencies must report salary and benefits data to the state controller’s office, but K‑12 school districts are not required to do so, and many don’t. BUSD did not file a report for 2024, the most recent year available on the Government Compensation in California website. But a look at 2024 salaries from Transparent California, a public pay and pension database, provides some insight into compensation for district employees." Thanks to Vanessa Arredondo and @Berkeleyside for doing such an exceptional job of using our data! If you’d like to see more data like this, you can help by sponsoring data collection for your favorite public agency. Find that agency on http://transparentcalifornia and click "Sponsor This Agency." That not only provides funding but prioritizes the collection of the agency’s data in our systems. berkeleyside.org/2026/08/19/…

Transparent California, the state’s largest database of public pay and pension data, has now obtained 2024 data covering over 93% of employee compensation and pension payments in our state. This includes state, county, city, school district, and special records. Our team has collected almost 3 million compensation records documenting $278 billion in total pay and benefits, and 1.5 million pension records with $64 billion in payments. Since launching over a decade ago Transparent California has now collected and posted over 50 million compensation and pension records. All available free at Transparent California. This year we’ve made that site easier to use. Users report they love our site changes and web traffic has seen a tremendous increase, to over 2 million page views a month. Did you know in 2024 149,065 public employees made total compensation exceeding a quarter-million dollars a year? For more detail on what we’ve found in this data, go to our website and click on News and Updates for a summary. transparentcalifornia.com/ne…

A good look by the @voiceofsandiego at "The Plan to Improve Contract Oversight" in San Diego County. "“The county would move toward a shared operating model with consistent expectations, documented responsibilities, assignment tracking, escalation procedures and a strong executive visibility,” Butler said. “That clarity is what allows the governance structure to become an accountability structure.” Which all sounds good, except for one thing - it's stupid and unlikely to do much. Note no mention of true accountability - for the government management tasked with oversight of contracts. Which means nothing will happen. There are effective ways to manage contracts. Private industry learned those ways a long time ago. Establish a clear objective, set up a budget, establish objective metrics to judge whether the objectives are being met, then track that periodically - and either bonus the responsible manager if they do well, or cut their pay (and possibly terminate them) if not. It's that simple. But that would require a government who understood their job was to provide services to residents in a cost effective way, and that's not the government we have.... voiceofsandiego.org/2026/08/…

Some great reporting by @DarwinBondGraha at @Oaklandside illuminating the massive overtime provided to employees in Oakland, by management who apparently does not understand the importance of providing the best services for city residents. Imagine if everyone just looked up their local government on Transparent California? What would they see? oaklandside.org/2026/08/11/o…

Our Director of Research, @ToddMaddison, participated in a discussion of education topics - including, of course, the importance of data in those discussions - hosted by the @SDLibertarian last weekend. As we all know here at Transparent California, data shall set you free! directory.libsyn.com/shows/v…

A great write up on what is a dire threat to the right of Californians to know what their government is doing. The California Public Records Act is a key to getting actual data and documents on what is happening in our government behind the scenes. "That is why Assembly Bill 1821 deserves to be called out plainly. This bill would make it more difficult to obtain public records by giving agencies more room to delay responses, letting them reject requests they claim were not properly submitted, allowing new charges for search and retrieval in some cases, and permitting agencies to go to court against requesters they accuse of acting with malicious intent." Thanks to the @FlashReport blog for highlighting this! sodoesitmatter.com/p/ab-1821…

A recent interview of our Director of Research done by Philip Stemler, a great parent activist in the @nmusd school district. Can you imagine the revolution we'd see in quality of K12 education if we put our superintendents on a bonus plan that gave them a significant bump if they actually improved education? But that's not what our education system is designed to do, right? It's all about making sure the adults are taken care of, not the kids... philippstemler.substack.com/…