San Francisco voting on Gov. 2.0 legislation tomorrow

Tomorrow, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisor’s will likely vote into law the Open Data Directive proposed by former San Francisco Mayor, Gavin Newsom.

Over a year ago, Newsom—now the lieutenant governor—galvanized San Francisco into adopting social media and open government standards when he implemented Twitter-311 services and began sharing over 150 government data sets with the public on DataSF.org.

San Francisco’s website has already earned an “A+” transparency rating from Sunshine Review. It would be great to see a major metropolitan city cement Gov 2.0 practices for its future.

H/T: GovFresh

Exorbitant government salaries in Bell, California: update

Prosecutors on Thursday filed new charges against Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo. Rizzo is one of eight officials accused of misappropriating $5.5 million of city money to pay their own salaries. Rizzo pulled in $787,637 a year as city manager of Bell, California, a Los Angeles suburb with a population of about 40,000.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown said the court needs to appoint a monitor who can observe the city government’s actions and “give the citizens of Bell transparency.” Brown also subpoenaed testimony from the small city of Vernon, whose officials reportedly raked in similarly high salaries.

Four of Bell’s five city council members made $100,000 a year for their part-time positions. Rizzo and seven other city officials, including former Mayor Oscar Hernandez, face charges several allegations regarding mismanaged funds and conflicts of interest.

Brown called Bell a “city in crisis” and said the appointment of a monitor would help restore transparency and trust in the city government. One council member has resigned, one is still in jail, and two others have been recently released from jail. A Los Angeles grand jury indicted former city manager and utilities director Donal O’Callaghan on three felony counts of conflict of interest and misappropriation of public funds. He made $785,000 last year.

Brown’s attempt to fix the situation shows he’s aware of a problem. But instituting a monitor for Bell after the problem is late, and the important issue to address is how to prevent these things from happening in the first place. What really needs to happen is proactive disclosure legislation that puts the locus of openness on the government. Rather than the LA Times having to dig up information on exorbitant salaries after officials waste millions of citizens’ dollars unethically, future Bells can be prevented. For example, the State Comptroller responded to Bell by posting the salaries of all public officials in the city and county levels.

Sunshine Review on the Bell pay scandal:

*Exorbitant salaries trigger protests in California
*Citizens work wonders with information on their side… when they aren’t being kicked out of public meetings
*Sunshine would prevent more Bells
*CA salary transparency bill stalls in senate
*How Bell was discovered

199 California public employees earn $250,000 and up

The LA Times has continued their investigation into employee salaries and turned up 199 employees in Los Angeles County who are earning more than $250,000 annually.

A majority of those earning high salaries work in the medical field, but 31 of the public employees work in the public sector—mostly in emergency services. That is 31 employees whose work only reflects one county and they are earning more then the California governor, who banks $173,987.

Given the state of California’s budget, which was finally passed, is already a $10 billion shortfall for 2012, it is imperative that local salaries be disclosed to the public.

California budget finally approved

Finally, the record-long wait for California’s state budget is over. On the 99th day of its fiscal year the California legislature was able to approve the state budget. Already fiscal experts are calling the $87.5 billion spending plan a ticking time bomb, headed for certain disaster.

We’ll just have to take their word for it, because the budget is not available to citizens yet. In times where real-time results are a reality, how can be that budget that has been in process for 99 days not be posted online?

What do you think? Should we start a new count—how many days it will take to post the new budget online?

Update:I spoke too soon, 99 days and counting…

10 San Diego officials will collect $61 million in pensions

It was revealed by the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility (CFFR) today that the top ten paid officials in San Diego will collect $61 million in pension benefits over their lifetime.

“I was shocked by what I discovered in the City of Bell, and I’m shocked by what I discovered in the City of San Diego. San Diego is just like Bell – only bigger,” said CFFR’s President, Marcia Fritz.

Additionally, it was revealed that public officials in San Diego are only contributing 8 percent to their pension funds, as opposed to the 23 percent traditionally given by public officials.

How many more cities in California are paying outlandish salaries in pensions? Stories like this make it hard to believe that Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a pension transparency bill three days ago. Public officials’ salaries and pensions need to be proactively disclosed to their constituents.

CA salary transparency bill stalls in senate

Almost every politician in California was ready to jump on the “Let’s bash Bell” bandwagon, but now that legislation calling for salary transparency is in the senate, political officials are balking. The latest legislation would require that both municipal employees post their salaries online and state level employees as well.

The California senators are considering addressing the issue with an internal rule, which would be more flexible and easily changed.

If the California legislature was so eager to expose municipal salaries, then they should also be comfortable placing the same transparency standards on themselves. The legislature should worry less about how it’ll reflect on their campaigns, and more about what is right for Californian constituents.

CA officials jump on transparency bandwagon

In the wake of Bell, California’s exorbitant government salaries being revealed, officials, agencies, and associations are scrambling to push through transparency initiatives. Treasurer Bill Lockye wants increased auditing rules to report large pay increases and Controller John Chiang would like to create a database revealing the highest wages in every country. Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown has called for investigations, while Sen. Lou Correa has proposed the Taxpayer Right to Know Act, which would create a database of public employee pay. Even the League of California Cities is drafting legislation to publish government employee salary and pension information.

These are all great ideas, but the OC Register was right to point out that Californian officials were “asleep at the wheel” to have let this happen in the first place. CalPERS, California’s retirement system, knew about Bell’s salaries since 2006. Officials who were previously unconcerned with a report about the high pay of city managers in California are now waving it like a red flag.

This fervor for transparency points out an important lesson to take away Bell, transparency and disclosure are just the first steps towards an honest government. However, all these efforts will be useless if you have an inactive citizenry. Watchful or curious citizens, like the journalists at the LA Times, can never be replaced by a database.

Side note: More high salaries were revealed in Bell, CA. The city’s director of administrative services was earning $422,707, and the director of general services made $421,402. There were also 5 more employees earning well over $200,000 annually.

California Controller to post officials’ salaries

California Controller John Chiang (D) has responded to the outrage that came after citizens discovered that elected officials in Bell, California were making six-figure salaries. In a city of 40,000, this is especially lavish.

Chiang, who is running for re-election in November, has ordered cities and counties to report to him the salaries of elected officials and public employees, such as city managers.

He said posting this information on the controller’s website “will make sure that excessive pay is no longer able to escape public scrutiny and accountability.”

The absence of transparency is a breeding ground for waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars.

Chiang touches on two of the most important reasons for transparency. Implicitly, he knows the trust that comes when governments proactively disclose spending information. But from a practical standpoint, he recognizes the value in open information. Chiang is correct to note that transparency helps prevent corruption and waste: the outrage that came out of Bell is proof of that. What officials may not immediately realize, however, is that preventing this waste helps them, not just taxpayers. If officials have fund available to them that would otherwise be misspent, they can make those dollars go further. This delivery of services to constituents, which translates into votes.

And what better constituency service than transparency? Posting pay information online is a great response by Chiang.

Citizens work wonders with information on their side… when they aren’t being kicked out of public meetings

What can citizens do once they have government information?

In Bell, California, three senior city officials were making lavish salaries. The Chief Administrative Officer, Robert Rizzo, was making $787,637 for running the city of less than 40,000. When citizens found out, they were rightfully outraged and their anger translated into the resignation of those three officials. Now activist groups are calling for the resignation of 4 out of the 5 city council members. These positions are part time, but the council members are making more close to $100,000.

“It’s showing that the residents are ready and willing to fix this problem and they’re going to move forward until they get justice and get a government that works for them,” said Christina Garcia, the head of one of the activist groups involved in organizing upset citiznes. The group is calling for open records and an exhaustive audit of the city’s finances. Coincidentally, the city gets an “F” on transparency using our 10 point transparency checklist.

Citizens armed with information are fully-vested with the power they need in order to keep their government accountable. But what about those instances where information is kept from citizens?

Mike Gatto, California State Assemblyman, avoids cameras and answering question. But that’s putting it lightly. One man representing the assemblyman who can only kindly be described as “overly aggressive” in his tactics kicked a journalist out from a public meeting in a public library. Less than 30 people attended the meeting. And that’s how many would find out what really happened in that meeting,

Police at the scene threatened to arrest the journalist if he didn’t leave. Of course, the journalist was the last person that needed to be threatened by police. Perhaps the police should have threatened the assemblyman and compelled him to acknowledge California’s open meetings law.

Several things I’ve learned through #FOIAchat, our weekly Twitter conference on Freedom of Information issues, come to mind. First, video cameras will bring out the worst in public officials and their staff as far as secrecy goes. But few will object to, or notice, a voice recorder. For many reasons, video is far superior to just voice recording, but it is better than nothing. Second, the fact that Mike Gatto is acting like a diva is a story in itself. If this were a special on VH1, it would be understandable why he wouldn’t want unexpected cameras. But as an elected official, paid by taxpayer money, he has no right to exclude journalists (and thereby exclude his constituents) from public meetings. This is a story on it’s own right, and had he let the journalist in the meeting, the journalist probably wouldn’t have found anything as worthy of reporting as Gatto’s power trip.

Lastly, people are becoming a part of government accountability, and officials should embrace this and learn to work with citizens instead of trying to push us out. We’ve talked about the benefits to governments and citizens alike to letting cameras into open meetings. Officials can benefit by having justifications for their decisions available and they can also see a decrease in Freedom of Information Act requests. The benefits to citizens are obvious.

It won’t work to keep us out, we’re already in. Officials need to get with the times and include us in the conversation, or suffer the wrath of informed citizens.

Exorbitant salaries trigger protests in California

Yesterday, we discussed that California has the largest state budget shortfall in the US, topping at $41.6 billion dollars. Solutions are still being discussed after the Governor’s proposal to cut public employee wages was overruled by a judge.

Well, it turns out there are a few salaries for California public employees which being drastically overpaid.

In the city of Bell, home to 38,000 residents and one of the poorest municipalities of Los Angeles County, it was revealed that the City Manager earns a salary of $787,637 with annual 12 percent raises, the highest in the nation. The police chief makes $457,000, more than the LAPD’s chief, who oversees 3.8 million residents. Part time work for city earned council members $100,000 a year and an average monthly check of $8,083.

“It seems obscene to me,” State Assemblyman Hector De La Torre said. “People making $30,000 a year are paying taxes so that their council members can make $80,000.”

The report sparked outrage amongst the residents who protested outside of city hall, calling for an independent audit of the city council member’s salaries and contracts. They want fiscal transparency in the county, and they want it yesterday.

Not surprisingly, the city earned an “F” transparency grade from Sunshine Review, but hopefully the corruption in the city council will push for a more open, honest and realistic government. The City Council can start by proactively disclosing salaries and other budget information online.

Next Page »