Dick Spotswood: Not all Marin school districts post salaries, as requested

The California State Controller’s Office maintains a list of the salaries, bonuses and pension contributions reflecting the total compensation of public employees for state and local governments. It’s the essence of governmental transparency.

The controller requests that all counties, cities, special purpose districts and schools, both public and chartered, provide data indicating the salaries, bonuses, retirement contributions and health insurance that its employees and governing board members receive. Last year, all state agencies including the judiciary supplied the requested information.

Compliance with the controller’s request is voluntary, not compulsory. At least some of those local governments that fail to reply fear a backlash if the total compensation granted their employees might appear to their taxpayers to be inappropriate for their size and mission.

Since Marin residents take good government seriously, in 2024 its county government and all 11 of Marin’s cities and towns timely filed the requested data. It’s available for inspection at publicpay.ca.gov.

The same goes for Marin’s collection of 59 noneducation special-purpose districts. They provide essential fire, sewer, water, recreation and a range of community services. From the largest in expenditure terms, Marin Municipal Water District, to West Marin’s diminutive Tomales Village Community Service District, all fully disclosed their employees’ and board members’ pay and benefits. Their constituents should expect no less.

Compared to their state, county, city and special-districts counterparts, Marin’s school districts present a mixed bag.

College of Marin, along with six independent school districts, made employee pay and benefits transparent in 2024. Complying with the controller’s request were San Rafael Elementary, Reed Union, Larkspur-Corte Madera, Nicasio, Miller Creek and Laguna.

Fourteen other Marin school districts, including publicly funded charter schools, failed to file timely reports with the state controller in 2024. That includes the Marin County Office of Education, Bolinas-Stinson Union, Kentfield, Sausalito Marin City, Mill Valley, Ross, Ross Valley, Ross Valley Charter, San Rafael High School District, Novato Unified, Novato Charter, Tamalpais Union High School District, Lagunitas Joint and Shoreline.

Up to and including 2021, Marin’s Office of Education complied with the controller’s disclosure request. Coincidentally, past Marin County Superintendent Mary Jane Burke retired in 2022, the year when the 2021 disclosure was lodged with the controller.

An oddity is that while San Rafael Elementary School District fully reported employee total compensation, the Mission City’s technically separate high school district did not. That was likely an error and not due to avoidance of transparency. That there are two San Rafael districts is solely a legal distinction as the elementary district and the high school district each share the same board of trustees and staff.

There’s one step that will promote a level of public disclosure to which California taxpayers are entitled. State legislators need to enact a statute that’ll change the controller’s request for total compensation data from voluntary to mandatory.

Cities, counties and special-purpose districts across the state tend to comply with the controller’s voluntary request. Not so school districts. Only 20% of kindergarten through 12th grade schools released the data. It appears there’s an unknown systemic flaw causing such widespread omission.

Give Marin’s 13 nonreporting school agencies (both public and charter), plus the County Office of Education, the benefit of the doubt. They now have an opportunity to correct the record.

This January is when they can easily compile their employees’ total compensation data for 2025. Their front offices have this information at their fingertips. The good government goal is to have each of them file those numbers with the Office of State Controller Malia M. Cohen by the end of February 2026.

I will follow up in March, just three months away. I plan to report which of those now delinquent schools embrace the ideal of public accountability.

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.