Ep. 253 - How Much Do We Pay Public Officials in California?

[00:00:00] If you're a California conservative, a libertarian, a moderate Democrat, believe in common sense,

[00:00:11] or just the sane person, this is the political podcast for you. It's the California Underground

[00:00:17] Podcast.

[00:00:27] What's going on everybody? Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the California Underground

[00:00:30] Podcast. I am your host Phil, along with me as always is my trusted cohost, the best and

[00:00:34] fastest researcher in the West. And tonight we have probably another very, very good researcher,

[00:00:41] someone who handles a lot of data, who is one of the OG guests from California Underground.

[00:00:46] He was on many years ago. We're glad to have him back to give us an update on what's

[00:00:51] going on with public officials, how much they're making. Todd Madison from Transparent

[00:00:55] California. Todd, welcome back to the show. How are you?

[00:00:58] All right, thanks Phil. Good to meet you Camille. I've been listening to you guys for a while.

[00:01:04] Well we definitely appreciate that. And like I said, Camille loves diving into this sort

[00:01:09] of stuff so I feel like this is sort of like up Camille's alley learning about what you

[00:01:13] do in Transparent California. So why don't we just start right there, people who

[00:01:18] may have not heard you on our last time you were on, talk about Transparent California

[00:01:23] and what it is that you do. Sure, absolutely. Thanks. So Transparent

[00:01:27] California is a public database. We're a watchdog agency. We specialize in public

[00:01:34] and public employee compensation. So all of the focal school superintendents, city

[00:01:40] managers, police and fire captains, teachers, dog catchers, landscape engineers, whatever

[00:01:48] they are, if they work for a public agency in the state of California, our mission

[00:01:52] is to collect the data on our compensation. There's really nothing that is more prone to

[00:01:57] abuse in government than people using tax dollars to line their own pockets. There's

[00:02:03] really nothing that needs the light of sunshine, shine on it more than that. I think we

[00:02:08] would all agree. And that's what we do. You know, Transparent California, we collect

[00:02:12] almost four million records per year in the state of California. We collect, we've

[00:02:18] got about almost four hundred high in the records online coming back to 2011 right now.

[00:02:23] So anybody out there ever wants to go and look up and see what their local school district

[00:02:27] takes, what their local city government, their water district, their cemetery district,

[00:02:32] their hospital district, in whatever it is we collect from over 3,000 public agencies

[00:02:37] in the state of California every year. And more than likely it can sound like

[00:02:42] they've got it. So that's the mission that we have.

[00:02:46] So what got you inspired to hop into such an enormous task of gathering this much data?

[00:02:55] It was an accent. So what actually happened is, so I was on your show before because

[00:03:01] I was the San Diego County Sheriff's School of Choice and K-12 Education is kind of a hobby

[00:03:07] of mine that's been a real interest, one of my hobbies. Back in the olden days when I was

[00:03:13] out working six days a week, 12 hours a day, you know I've been killing the buffalo. My

[00:03:18] wife was at school, she was our ambassador of school, so she was out there volunteering

[00:03:24] in schools, being on the PCOs, PTAs, all this stuff. And I used to just kind of

[00:03:30] make them to take care of it into a brainchild that's off, can't stream out of brain.

[00:03:35] When I finally got a little bit of free time and I really wanted to get in, I found out

[00:03:40] that the state had increased taxes proposition 30. Some may remember it was a tax increase

[00:03:46] designed to call it inference education, that's what it was for. But yet I didn't see any

[00:03:51] improvement happening in my local district. I didn't see class sizes going down. I didn't

[00:03:56] see structural materials. I didn't see science supplies. I didn't see things happening.

[00:04:01] But yet the school district was getting tens of millions of dollars for. So I started

[00:04:06] looking at it. My background in private news grabs to the director of the division,

[00:04:10] the national retailer. So I've spent a lot of time looking at budget documents and managing

[00:04:15] large groups of employees trying to figure out how to make things work, you know, the way they

[00:04:20] should. I was turned to customer service so it was necessary for us to make customers happy.

[00:04:25] That was my job. So when I looked at this, I bought, okay, I'm gonna apply those skills.

[00:04:29] I'm gonna, if you use my ninja excel skills to figure out where the money's going

[00:04:34] in our school district and take a look at that, that led me to pay. Over 90% of I'm a strength

[00:04:40] in funds in our schools is spent on pay, labor, and benefits for the school, which makes sense

[00:04:46] in some people business. So looking at that, that led me to transfer to California. So I started

[00:04:51] looking at the data there and starting becoming a pain in the butt at school more days. I used

[00:04:56] to stand up in different presentations every May during budget season. I would get my

[00:05:00] presentation at the ocean side, get my school district showing them exactly what they were

[00:05:05] going to run out of money based on their tendency and give themselves raises with all the extra money

[00:05:10] we're giving to them in tax dollars. So that actually led me to look at the data and ice.com

[00:05:16] and error in the data and I emailed to Instructor in California and said, okay, you know, what's

[00:05:21] up with that? We need to fix this. When did I get accurate data? And the dang charted the time

[00:05:27] and then Robert Thoner said, well, if you think you can do better, how about if you join us?

[00:05:32] So that's how I got into transfer to California. I was an unpaid volunteer for years

[00:05:38] and then eventually decided to pay me a very small amount of money to be in charge of the data

[00:05:43] collection process. So I made roughly 120th of what the state and controller office analyst

[00:05:49] who does the same thing makes in this. So starting to trade in California, like I say,

[00:05:55] eventually became the director of research in charge of the data collection efforts. So

[00:05:59] we made over 3,000 public records that request every year. Take the like that for to put online

[00:06:06] to free everybody to look at. How many people does that take to accomplish that? Well, we have

[00:06:14] myself who is overall part time. So we have myself we all was in charge of the project. We

[00:06:20] have two other people. We have one guy who's charged at the special district collections

[00:06:24] in all the seven fairing districts and water districts and all that. And then we have a guy who

[00:06:29] specializes in formatting the data. So it means all the weird data formats that agencies give us

[00:06:34] in terms that is something we can upload into the website. I'm assuming they're emailing you

[00:06:38] files. You guys aren't making 100,000 calls throughout the year. No, it's generally done

[00:06:45] via email. It's a somewhat updated process. When I first got started in this, it was

[00:06:51] transferring California and only been doing this for about three or four years.

[00:06:55] And it was like plenty. I mean, people just cannot they don't want to get in here.

[00:06:59] They're may records of course. So so we used to have been feeding on used to be in the part

[00:07:05] of the process over and over and over again. Nowadays, I think they've pretty much given

[00:07:10] up. I think they know that if they don't answer us there, they were not just going to come

[00:07:13] up and go away. So we have a lot more success at just getting people to answer.

[00:07:19] Still, you know, there are agencies that refuse. We end up filing lawsuits periodically,

[00:07:24] you know, against those who don't want to provide the information. But by and large,

[00:07:29] it's somewhat the team this days. Well, you brought up the state controller.

[00:07:37] At least you're not being investigated by the FBI. Is that right? Is that the

[00:07:40] state controller Fiona Ma who's being investigated by the FBI right now?

[00:07:44] I've heard something about them, but I can't tell you any details of that.

[00:07:49] I'd have to your researcher would have to look that up.

[00:07:52] Give me what I would have to research it.

[00:07:56] So in terms of you got started with schools, public schools, when did you start branching

[00:08:02] out into other parts of the government and say, well, it worked here with the schools. Let's

[00:08:08] try this agency. What was the first agency after you started doing schools?

[00:08:13] Transparency, California was always collecting from all agencies. So when I came in, it was

[00:08:18] originally a project from the California Policy Center. Once my lands christians and all the

[00:08:25] people over there, they started in Transparency, California. So Genesis and this, I don't know

[00:08:30] if anybody remembers this, but the city of Bell at a giant scale. Yes. And yes. So in the 2000s,

[00:08:38] as it was discovered, the new city of Bell, the city manager and the city council had been

[00:08:43] scratching each other's backs and raising each other's pay all fruit and that late. And

[00:08:49] all pretty much totally legal because it was actually approved by the city council

[00:08:54] until the city manager was making $800,000 a year.

[00:09:00] Back then, what 800,000 a year was a lot of money.

[00:09:03] Yeah. It's not now, of course, by tank and gas, maybe. But no, so the city manager,

[00:09:11] you know, he ended up going to jail for this. It wasn't really legal. But as a result of that in

[00:09:17] 2014, in past, I mean, 2040, which actually requires all of state agencies to afford their

[00:09:23] compensation into the state of California except schools. Schools are voluntary still. But

[00:09:30] everyone else is supposed to report enough. And critical issue there is that they aren't required

[00:09:35] to report names. They're required. They report positions. Okay. So if you look at any state agency,

[00:09:42] any local agency, how many different counties and they have how many different, you know,

[00:09:47] except for the very top management, the titles are not good. There's often many, many people.

[00:09:53] Plus, we also find what we've done in the past when Mika isn't covered is cases where people

[00:09:58] are actually collecting on disability claims at the same time that they're working from paying

[00:10:03] elsewhere. There's kind of a famous one, the guy who actually discovered the Boston Marathon bomber

[00:10:10] was working for the FBI and he was actually on a disability claim from the state of

[00:10:15] California at the same time. So put on him. Glad he found the bomber and that's for sure.

[00:10:21] But you know, on the other hand, you know, it's a double dembing. It's a violation of the rules and

[00:10:28] so on and so forth. So without names, you would never have that. So what we do is we pick it back

[00:10:33] on that law because they are required to report in the state that piece of data exists,

[00:10:39] which is a fundamental thing that I don't know how much you guys know about the California

[00:10:43] Public Records Act. But it requires you can only ask for insisting data. You can't require

[00:10:50] anything. The person you're asking or the age you're asking to create anything for you can only

[00:10:55] ask for something that already exists. So because it already exists, we know it exists.

[00:11:00] It's a state requires that that means we can go ask for it. So that's why we're able to do what

[00:11:05] we do. So since the last time we talked and last time we talked, we were talking more

[00:11:12] about school choice and we talked a little bit about TransFranccom for you.

[00:11:15] What have you found recently that is that listeners would find pretty shocking to hear

[00:11:23] where their tax dollars are going to? Well, I think just the magnitude, the overall magnitude of

[00:11:28] pay. I think it's a people don't understand we have this myth, you know, that public employees

[00:11:34] and just grossly underpaid, you know, that's why we justify the massive pension payments and

[00:11:39] all this stuff. You think of your local public employee and local administrative system, local

[00:11:45] guard duty, local whatever it is, and barely making above minimum wage, you know, we're all

[00:11:51] empathetic to that. They do a great job. I mean, I have no problem paying them. But if you look

[00:11:56] at the actual data, there is over a million public employees in the state of California

[00:12:00] that have been over $100,000 a year. So that may not be richest these days,

[00:12:07] but it certainly is a fence. And if you look at some of the other things, if you want to go for

[00:12:14] over $250,000 a year, you know, there's, I don't know, sorry, 100,000, $100,090 employees,

[00:12:25] they can open $250,000 a year, $4,000 a year, over $500,000. Wait, wait, wait, say that.

[00:12:32] I thought you were saying 100,000. So 100,000 public workers make over $250,000 a year?

[00:12:39] Yeah, exactly. How do I get one of those jobs but like from home?

[00:12:46] There's 492 that make over a million.

[00:12:50] Two for the sky. I mean, why not go for the 492?

[00:12:55] Does that look like a greedy?

[00:12:57] Yeah. And those are, those are planning rapidly. The over 500 clubs up 10% the last year,

[00:13:03] the over a million clubs up 12% in just the last year.

[00:13:06] Seriously, what kind of positions are those?

[00:13:08] Well, so the really high end ones, there's a Danny and Charles Kelly is a coach at UCLA,

[00:13:14] O'Buzz I guess, on Canadian over $5 million last year. So, you know, I mean, there are

[00:13:19] people like that, the highest end ranks 10 million, probably like by coaches, I think five or six top

[00:13:24] all coaches. I'm always stuck on this. It costs money to go to UCLA. Why is that money not paying

[00:13:33] the coaches? Well, it is. It's just government money. It's, I mean, I don't know how much of

[00:13:40] that is in tuition revenue and supports that. And some of it is private, but ultimately it's

[00:13:47] government and kinds of check. Okay. So that's why we see it. We can't look in private.

[00:13:53] I mean, any private organizations people ask me all the time for union. Hey, you know,

[00:13:58] they want to know how much the union president makes for this union value. We can't look at

[00:14:03] that because they're a private entity. What? Yeah, the unions are all private entities.

[00:14:09] They're not often in the schools. The union president is often paid by the district

[00:14:14] and then they're supposed to be reimbursed by the union. So sometimes we can see into that because

[00:14:20] they're paid by the school. The union tape private industries. I'm so I'm so confused right now and

[00:14:27] also a little bit mind blown because I didn't know that. Okay. Oh yeah. No, no, no, union is a

[00:14:32] totally private. As a matter of fact, and I forget the details, but there was an instance

[00:14:36] not too long ago where the unions were actually opposed to having their own employees

[00:14:41] organized as a unit. And so, you know, I have to look at the details on that. I can tell you

[00:14:48] off the bat. Okay, that's entertaining. I'm just giving kind of way. I'm still wrapping my head

[00:14:55] around 100,000 people make over $250,000. I mean, what does the governor make? The governor

[00:15:01] doesn't even make like, no, I can keep it like 175 or something like he's not on our list.

[00:15:06] We know. You know, earlier when we're talking elected officials really don't make that much.

[00:15:12] And we looked up their pay easily. But like you said, what are they getting

[00:15:17] from behind in secret? The back end deals are really where they make them. Yeah. But on the front

[00:15:23] end, you know, just as I'm probably looking at an example. So because again, James Hammond

[00:15:27] is the superintendent of schools in Ontario Montclair School District. Ontario Montclair,

[00:15:32] 83% of their families qualify for free lunch. So free lunch from appalling for $39,000 a year.

[00:15:40] So 83% of their families make $39,000 a year or less. Mr. Hammond pays himself almost $700,000

[00:15:47] a year as the superintendent of schools in that district. So I just an example and it's

[00:15:54] totally approved. It's totally legal. It is for, you know, proper standard. So it's all legal.

[00:15:59] I know things doing in the evening and various there. Montabella Unified, the superintendent of

[00:16:05] the sweat, there he won $5 billion in 2019. Part of that was a legal payout but it's still a huge

[00:16:11] amount of money. We can teacher pay because they're valid for you. You know, we hear often

[00:16:16] about how teachers are tremendously underpaid and, you know, we need to sacrifice education

[00:16:22] of kids or whatever money could go into that so that we can pay in dangerous war.

[00:16:26] I'm totally down with teachers. I mean, I love teachers. They're absolutely great. You know, we

[00:16:31] need more of them, good ones. But the media told compensation is $130,000 a year right now. So

[00:16:39] is that rich? No, absolutely not. But I think it's barely paid. I think they're being paid

[00:16:44] barely for the job at that point. So when we see them demanding more money to be taken from

[00:16:49] money that can be used for education, that annoys me. That bothers me.

[00:16:55] I know two days of familiar with the San Diego Unified that's going on right now in the layoffs.

[00:16:59] They're laying off several hundred employees. So last year they gave themselves a 58% raise

[00:17:06] precious in the board for 15% raise. The media combat that point with San Diego Unified

[00:17:12] teacher was $138,000 a year. So they gave themselves a 15% raise and county warned them

[00:17:18] and said, you're going to have to cut. If you improve this raise, you're going to have to cut.

[00:17:22] They ignored it in any way. Now they're cutting. So that's what happens. There's usually a distance

[00:17:29] between the raise and the cut. Usually a month or four months at least because they want everybody

[00:17:34] to forget that the reason they're cutting is because they gave themselves a raise. So that's

[00:17:39] how we typically see it. So things like that just happen. So a frequently in public of an

[00:17:47] employee. Do they just think like, I mean, this is you examine the data and provide us with that

[00:17:55] information? I mean, the question that I think people are listening and wondering is,

[00:18:00] do these people not see that there's not an endless supply of money, that they're not

[00:18:05] going to just keep getting money. Maybe they think they're just going to keep getting

[00:18:08] money. Maybe they think they can just keep raising taxes and get more and more at the

[00:18:11] end of the day. But this just seems like so unbelievably negligent. If you know,

[00:18:18] we raise our pay 15%, we're going to end up paying, we're going to end up cutting all these people

[00:18:25] and they just don't care. They just, you know, they give themselves raises anyway.

[00:18:30] I don't know what your thoughts are. People don't watch school board meetings. People don't

[00:18:35] watch console meetings. People don't look at the details. Unfortunately, by the time they

[00:18:40] find out it's too late, you know, it's already happened. Like I say, in the case of saying

[00:18:46] they mutified the county themselves, the county office, which is responsible for making sure our

[00:18:51] school was concerned financial shame said on the, they sent a letter the day of the

[00:18:57] board meeting that said you're going to have to cut 10, 131 million dollars.

[00:19:03] So what they said if you improve this raise, but yet they didn't disclose that. They didn't

[00:19:07] say that in the meeting. They didn't tell people that before they approved it and they never had

[00:19:12] disclosed it. I've never heard them mention it in the meeting. I went and spoke in front of them a

[00:19:16] few weeks ago when they had the layoffs and asked if they were now going to apologize to all those

[00:19:21] low-paid people who were in their jobs because everybody else wanted a 15% raise.

[00:19:27] This is just like the minimum wage fast food thing in California.

[00:19:31] Exactly. It's exactly the same effect.

[00:19:34] But we use inflation that the biggest is that parents aren't there, you know, demanding.

[00:19:39] The schools will make a argument all the time that the reason we can't educate our kids properly

[00:19:45] is because we don't get enough money from the state. That is what they will say all the time.

[00:19:50] The reality that state funding has gone up at three times the rate of inflation in the last 10

[00:19:54] years and the problem is not that they don't get enough money. The problem isn't ensured

[00:19:58] since it's themselves rather than using new proof of education. I would thank parents and be

[00:20:05] marching the streets about that but we give the grandparents and orbeez to give it and say something

[00:20:11] but not enough. All right, so you guys have an incredible sight and we were talking about before

[00:20:19] we hopped on. If you are a data nerd who loves to look at this stuff, give me one second and I can

[00:20:27] pull this up for us. So this is your guys' site so it's very straightforward, transparentCalifornia.com.

[00:20:39] You can go here and look up salaries. So I'm going to your site.

[00:20:44] Tell me, give me a name or a job title I can look up that will find something.

[00:20:50] Sure. Let's take a look at James Hammond group to be with James and then NJMMOND.

[00:20:59] Search. Okay, so there he is. So you can see that he's even, I'm not going to report him to 3000

[00:21:07] in 2021, 728,000 in 2019 I guess that is and so on and so forth. So that's how you can look

[00:21:15] up pretty much anybody you want. Typically I urge people to look up the local school superintendent

[00:21:22] or their local city manager, the chief of police often that I'm totally down with police.

[00:21:30] I think if they do a job that's absolutely necessary but if you look at linked list

[00:21:35] let's get you another day to look up here. Let's look at Herman Robinson.

[00:21:39] Robinson. Yeah, R-O-B-I-N-S-O-N. Yep, you got it.

[00:21:44] So with Robertson is a police officer in LAHO. He makes total compensation $879,000 last year.

[00:21:55] So you know with the people of LAHO, Hermione is probably the most awesome police officer

[00:22:02] here and I'm very glad that he's there. But with the people of LAHO maybe be better off if they

[00:22:09] cut his salary back to a least $250,000 or something and pay him an entry or four-horn

[00:22:15] police officer on the beam. Yeah, you know I mean when that benefits them.

[00:22:20] I'm going to put in, I just looked him up because I was interested. Lamont Jackson

[00:22:26] is the superintendent for San Diego Unified. Are police officers on here?

[00:22:33] Yeah, police officers are on there by our providers are on there. His regular pay is $359,000.

[00:22:42] Yeah and then total with benefits is $475,000. I got into the wrong business.

[00:22:50] Well one of the critical things about being in the long business talk,

[00:22:53] people look at that $475,000 and they go well that doesn't count because that's not

[00:22:58] take home money. I can't buy groceries with that because I think China that is enabits.

[00:23:02] But I can tell you. Yeah Camille as a mom, I mean how much would you appreciate having a

[00:23:08] healthcare plan that was fully paid for by someone else with that was totally

[00:23:12] bullplated and flushed? No co-pays, no deductibles, you know or minimal co-pays and

[00:23:17] deductibles. I think my daughter just got out of the hospital a couple weeks ago. Yeah.

[00:23:25] The average total expense on healthcare for most of our public employees is about $25,000 a year.

[00:23:33] If you look at what they're spending. That includes dental. That includes dental.

[00:23:39] Superacists. Yeah I mean my husband put them through I stay home.

[00:23:44] Yeah and then when it gets even worse when you talk about retirement benefits.

[00:23:50] So right now the state and the total contribution to a teacher is civilian

[00:23:56] bully's teachers to them as someone else to mine with them. I was 29% of their pay every

[00:24:01] single year. Every single year they get 29% of their pay contributed into their retirement account.

[00:24:06] So if you as a private employee got 29% of your pay and put it in your 401k,

[00:24:12] you would have tens of billions of dollars after a 30 year career. So it's amazing.

[00:24:20] It's not too late for you Phil. Get out. I'm looking at this going. I might as well just

[00:24:25] trade in my bar license and try and get one of these positions. This is unbelievable.

[00:24:31] I pulled up Barbara Ferrer who was recently in the news because what did I just post something

[00:24:37] about something was racist? Oh gosh now I can't remember. I just posted it today on Instagram.

[00:24:43] Because yeah it was so ridiculous. And she's at the head of this and she's

[00:24:48] I mean she's the director of public health in Los Angeles. We don't have to go back down the

[00:24:52] COVID road. She didn't do great on it. I think she did horrible. I don't think she has any,

[00:24:59] she's not a doctor yet. She's the director of public health in Los Angeles and her regular pay

[00:25:04] is 490. Total pay and benefits is $661,000 a year. And then she says things like STDs in LA

[00:25:12] are because of racism. That's what you posted. Yeah that's okay yeah that's what it was like oh my

[00:25:19] gosh. Yeah. This site alone should make people sick. Well then you look at some of the people

[00:25:27] in charge. I saw special ones CNN about homelessness in San Francisco a while back and they're walking

[00:25:34] around with a bunch of officials. They paid something like $90,000 to draw lines on a parking

[00:25:39] lot so people can put tents in there. And this guy is giving us a tour and I'm looking him up.

[00:25:45] That guy made almost $400,000 a year. So he's making $400,000 a year to supposedly

[00:25:52] solve the homeless problem. To draw chalk lines? Yeah to draw chalk lines or pay lines.

[00:26:00] So I mean the fundamental problem is that there's no connection between pay and performance.

[00:26:05] That's it. I've been getting a job in the public sector and I feel sorry. Yeah I wouldn't blame you

[00:26:12] if that was the case because it's just I mean like people say like are you going to the public

[00:26:18] sector you don't make any money? That's clearly not the case here. If you're in California you can

[00:26:23] get a good job and make a ton of money. Are social workers on there? Probably they probably don't make

[00:26:30] a lot of money usually but one of the fundamental things is that they don't make a lot of money

[00:26:35] to start. You know when you're involved in a teacher negotiation often you'll hear you ask

[00:26:40] parents like how much did teachers make and they'll say $40,000. $50,000. In reality of course

[00:26:47] we know it's $130,000 in a meeting and that's a midpoint but what they're using is the starting

[00:26:53] pay. So you know when the labor union negotiates they deliberately keep the starting pay low

[00:27:00] because that is the perception of people of what teachers make so that drives the feeling that

[00:27:06] we should increase their pay because people look at the starting pay and go oh that's

[00:27:10] ridiculous. So in reality they're in control of that schedule. They can raise the starting

[00:27:16] pay if they really believe that they need to raise starting pay to attract and retain all

[00:27:20] the new teachers just raise it. It's their negotiation. They could do it anytime. All they'd have to do

[00:27:25] is take the money away from somewhere else in the schedule you know just like getting business.

[00:27:31] So yeah so talking about the not the take-home pay but also the pensions and the benefits

[00:27:39] you you also broke down a lot on what people are getting paid pension wise and I'm just kind

[00:27:46] of looking at this here now. How much California owes and pension to I'm trying to find the number

[00:27:52] if you have the number you can just shoot it. I don't have the total it's like a trillion dollars

[00:27:55] there's some ridiculous no we feel yes but I can tell you so we we have 1.5 trillion is the

[00:28:02] number 0.5 trillion yeah I knew it was it was a big number we pay about 65 billion in pensions

[00:28:08] annually I'm gonna pay that out there's 126,000 people who are seeing pensions over 100,000

[00:28:15] dollars a year there's 1200 over 250,000 dollars a year so 0.5 trillion yeah that 0.5 is a huge

[00:28:24] number too yeah like that's a huge number in addition to 1 trillion 1.5 trillion oh my gosh

[00:28:33] yeah and one of the things though is that they feel like the pensions are such a good deal and

[00:28:38] they're actually being ripped off you know they don't even even the math teachers in school districts

[00:28:44] apparently don't get this but if you you know imagine it if then supposed being the school

[00:28:50] district just did the 25% of your salary and what you put it into 401k you know not that we would

[00:28:56] save money because it wouldn't be 29% people would save money you could use that for an

[00:29:00] income from education but the person we get on 100,000 dollars they give 25,000 a year for 30

[00:29:07] years put into their 401k and at the end of that they can leave it to their kids you know

[00:29:12] which you can't do on a pension you know when you when you pass away on a pension generally

[00:29:18] as follows can get a deed you can cut the right pension set up but you can't leave it you know to

[00:29:23] give them to your kids or grandkids or anything like that so um so technically you know they're

[00:29:27] really being ripped off and they just don't know it it comes to the pensions

[00:29:33] that's I struggle to think how they believe they're going to pay 1.5 million in trillion

[00:29:44] trillion sorry 1.5 million would be nothing that'd be a drop in the bucket 1.5 trillion

[00:29:51] in pension debt I just I and they keep raising it like you said people in california keep complaining

[00:29:58] that it's not high enough so it's never going down like where do where do we even go from here

[00:30:03] with 1.5 trillion dollars in debt well it's easy to predict so right now I think about 70% of the

[00:30:10] pension debt is still the future pension obligations are funded so they are only funding to pay out 70

[00:30:17] some percent of the the benefits that they promised so at some point they're gonna hit the wall at some

[00:30:24] point they're not gonna have enough money to pay out benefits at the rate that they're paying

[00:30:28] out now so when that happens really only one or two things to happen either they can cut the

[00:30:34] benefits or they can increase taxes so they're they're betting on when they go to to when they

[00:30:41] hit that wall and they need more money they go to people they say oh we need to raise taxes these

[00:30:46] poor public employees aren't gonna get their full benefits unless we do and they're betting

[00:30:50] people will approve it I'm kind of hoping people don't I'm kind of hoping that I mean I want

[00:30:56] I want them to get their benefits I mean I you shouldn't cheat people out of benefits

[00:31:00] they've been promised absolutely not but on the other hand the warning signs are there right now

[00:31:06] so if you're a public employee out there and you're listening to this you need to advocate

[00:31:10] for someone to take up your case and make the pension system make sense you know they can you

[00:31:16] they need to make people contribute more to their own pensions they need to do something with the

[00:31:20] way the pension system is managed they need to do something to fix the pension pension system

[00:31:26] now because coming into the people five or ten years from now and just say well not moving

[00:31:30] into cow except for these taxes it's probably not a winning strategy well I can imagine that

[00:31:36] the commercials that um you know seiu and uh california teachers association they'll

[00:31:42] they'll blast all over our screens will be these poor teachers and you don't want them to

[00:31:47] lose their pension and they'll show these all these poor teachers but they're not going to

[00:31:51] talk about the the guy making four hundred thousand dollars a year that you know that no

[00:31:58] i'm gonna say that poor guy four hundred thousand dollars a year needs someone to pay for his pension

[00:32:03] now they're going for misleading stads you know the la unified had a strike i read a

[00:32:09] negotiation last year with the classified staff and if anybody deserves more money it's classified

[00:32:15] support staff but they the union put out this number that the average person named

[00:32:19] 25 000 a year and i was like how is that possible that's actually below minimum wage if the average

[00:32:26] person in in la unified makes less than 25 000 in la unified is violating minimum wage laws so um

[00:32:33] so i went through and i looked at our data and the average was actually seven three thousand

[00:32:39] so it's different what they said in their marketing to convince people versus what actual

[00:32:44] numbers say who's doing these numbers that failed public school education failed them and they

[00:32:49] can't do math well i think it's i think it's kind of purpose i think that what they're so if i look at

[00:32:55] our data there's eight thousand people in la unified that exist in their records and got eight

[00:33:00] not so if i include all of them then i can get down to something like 13000 i can get a lot

[00:33:07] closer to their number so uh but they're not saying i mean i i think a person who's

[00:33:11] like this in the records but didn't make any money you can't be counted as an employee

[00:33:16] because you can't you can't say that's representative of what people make so who would this be like who

[00:33:22] who would be in the district not making money what is i don't know why they exist in the payroll

[00:33:27] systems they think they're thinking they're getting some down to some sort you know they could

[00:33:32] they're maybe they're here because they can they're a sub and they just never worked

[00:33:36] you know or something um you know i don't really know why they exist but but they're there if you

[00:33:41] look at the data they're there so that's what bothers me the most is then if if our if our public

[00:33:48] employees came out said okay you know the average firefighter makes a hundred and forty two thousand

[00:33:53] dollars here and we don't think that's enough we think you should be it should be more and we're

[00:33:59] going to cut uh farmers to repair rowans to do that so then people can make an honest decision

[00:34:05] they can say yes it's more important to me to pay buyer buyers more than it is to have you know

[00:34:11] top all free roads i'd be fine with it you know the problem that i have is basically just lying

[00:34:16] with the numbers and and making it up right there is nothing more um obscene to me you've had

[00:34:25] rubica for your excitement she did an awesome job there is nothing worse to me than public

[00:34:30] employees holding the education and kids hostage for more financial benefit for themselves you know

[00:34:37] in any anywhere else in society if you it seemed like held a kid over a railroad track and said either

[00:34:43] give me money or i'm gonna drop this kid um that would not work you know but yet routinely in

[00:34:50] in public you know we see people saying we're gonna damage the education of your kids

[00:34:53] unless you give us more money and that's just unacceptable to me that just not for me it

[00:34:58] should work yeah and i i i feel like this is all people who are listening i definitely encourage

[00:35:06] you to go check out transparent california play around with it put numbers in or put names in

[00:35:10] put positions in because i think you'll be sickened to see how much some of these people make um

[00:35:17] and information is power and i think it's important to get that out there where

[00:35:23] people can see these numbers they they see them black and white they can see right through it they

[00:35:29] can see that they're being lied to um so uh i mean camille and i are big believers and look up the

[00:35:36] data you can look up a lot of this stuff you can find the actual facts and data and then do the

[00:35:40] research yourself um so i encourage anyone who's listening and or tuning in just check out uh

[00:35:46] transparent california dot com and play around with it just put in a couple you know wherever

[00:35:51] you live you live in a certain place go check out the superintendent of your kid's school and you know

[00:35:56] look at how much they're making and if they're driving a roose roice or something like that i don't

[00:36:00] know um it's always the kids too it's always the teachers and they always roll out the teachers

[00:36:06] poor teachers poor kids and stuff like that but they never roll out the you know the the other

[00:36:12] bureaucratic official who's making six hundred thousand dollars a year um so anything so you

[00:36:20] put out 2022 numbers when are we going to see 2023 numbers so the our our collection cycle is based

[00:36:29] on the state controller's office cycle for those mandatory reporting that i mentioned earlier

[00:36:34] so we can't start collecting until they put out their deadline their deadline for cities counties

[00:36:40] and such is April 30th okay so we're really cating and start collecting until April 30th if we

[00:36:45] start before that all we need is kickback to me because you say we don't have it they can't get

[00:36:50] it because we don't have it so then we gotta make another request so once the kickoff happens

[00:36:55] April 30th now we've got this this team of basically three part-time people who need to make

[00:37:00] 3 000 public records act requests so generally that cycle tends to take six to nine months to do

[00:37:06] so we you know we we start with the biggest agencies first so ellie county ellie city you

[00:37:13] know sacramento you know we start with the big ones first um so you'll see those but um

[00:37:20] it will take by the time we get down to the little cities we'll stone those screens the charters and

[00:37:24] all that stuff it'll be probably 20 to 25 before we've got the 2023 date all uploaded so if

[00:37:31] if you're any of your viewers want to prioritize anything if they if they quote sponsor an agency

[00:37:39] which is only three by box on our site even like sponsor by bikes and that puts it at the top of

[00:37:44] the list when i get my list of okay what do we need to ask next week but what 100 or 200

[00:37:51] public records and requests are we gonna make next week the sponsored ones and

[00:37:54] are at the very top of the list so if you really have a an intent to see some data from

[00:37:59] some agency um just sponsor it and it'll go you know right to the frontal line so that's

[00:38:05] the best way to get that kind of data you can also ask yourself you know if you really want to

[00:38:10] you can you've been saying you know you've been make a public records act requestments and I'd

[00:38:14] like the same data the income the transparent telephone and they'll have to give it to you

[00:38:20] so that's going to be too high 25 dollars is a pretty good price to get all the information

[00:38:26] about one of your local agencies that you're interested in so yeah you'll get it anyway for

[00:38:31] free I mean we don't charge anybody for anything um so you'll get it the real question is like

[00:38:37] and if particularly if it's a smaller agency we probably won't get into until the end of this year

[00:38:42] you know early next year you know but if you wanted to come in in April you know or May or whatever

[00:38:47] they give us your sponsor and you know that helps for that so in wrapping up before we log off

[00:38:55] tonight talking about sponsorships and stuff like that where can people find more or support

[00:39:00] transparent california and support the cause transparent california.com so um so you go there

[00:39:08] you can look things up if you want we have a free way to subscribe so you can just click subscribe

[00:39:14] and it's free and then we will notify you when your data is posted so if you really want to see

[00:39:20] you know what that local cemetery industry director is making you know you can you can

[00:39:24] click subscribe putting your email and then whenever data gets posted you can email so that's

[00:39:30] all free sponsorship prioritizes the subscriptions just basically let you know when something comes in

[00:39:36] and of course you can donate as well you know everybody is welcome to donate um we're a 501c3 so

[00:39:42] uh so you just tax deductible so you can do that you'd like to do it as well.

[00:39:48] Well now I'm interested in seeing what the cemetery district supervisor or whatever

[00:39:52] does in San Diego I didn't even think of that that's a public position and they probably make a

[00:39:56] bajillion dollars. When I was on the CBC podcast Will Swain was like is there really such a thing

[00:40:03] as a cemetery district? Yes there is there's about 14 or 15 people in the state. I'm sure and

[00:40:10] they probably make decent money based on what we've learned tonight um all right with Todd

[00:40:16] thank you so much for coming back on I urge everybody to go check out transparent california

[00:40:20] if you can support it because like I said information is power and the more people start to figure out

[00:40:26] and spread the word about how much these people are making out they're being irresponsible with a lot

[00:40:30] of this money um I think it will change minds and hearts and hopefully that policy will bubble

[00:40:37] upwards so uh outside of the website is there any other place that people can follow transparent

[00:40:42] california on the daily? Facebook, Twitter you know we have a facebook page and I mean

[00:40:48] typically post um there we repost when we can mention the media almost every day almost every

[00:40:54] day our reporter somewhere uses our data to illuminate some story so we repost those stories there and we

[00:41:00] also repost those out on twitter um any little tidbits you know if we turn over a rock and find a

[00:41:06] place that the internet paying $800,000 in beer we might post that you know on the facebook page

[00:41:11] we have a blog you know for longer forum things if you really want to know what the ins

[00:41:16] and outs that are of education pay in the state of california teachers administrators

[00:41:21] support staff benefits there's a good blog series on our website on that you want to know the

[00:41:26] details so things like that so you became in tune I mainly right now we have tax it's taxis

[00:41:32] right you know so we're gonna see taxes increase this year we've got a lot how many how many

[00:41:37] cities in san jupyuk county have tax increases as well as on the agenda so if the next time

[00:41:42] your city council comes in and says we cannot provide you with um x service because we don't

[00:41:48] have enough money go look at how much they pay themselves you know and then we bet i've seen

[00:41:53] people actually go to city council meetings and school board meetings and just read and

[00:41:57] transparent telephone just go okay you tell us we need to raise the sales tax here meanwhile

[00:42:02] here's a list of all the people you know standing in front of me or in the city and

[00:42:06] then make over $250,000 a year just let him know you know that you're watching

[00:42:12] but that's what the news for yeah information is power well thank you Todd for coming on again

[00:42:20] look forward to being next year come back on give us more updates see if we found any $800,000

[00:42:25] janitors or something sound good all right well thank you thank you yeah and as we end every show

[00:42:33] like to make sure you like share subscribe review comment all that stuff helps with the

[00:42:37] algorithm and the best thing you can do to support the show it's absolutely free is

[00:42:42] just share it with someone who's interested in learning more about how much do we pay our public

[00:42:46] officials and why is it so damn much go check out transfer at california thanks everyone for

[00:42:53] tuning in and we'll see you on the next one later

[00:43:03] thank you for listening to another episode of california underground if you like what you

[00:43:12] heard remember to subscribe like and review it and follow california underground on social media

[00:43:16] for updates as to when new episodes are available