Everyone expects to have access to salary info for elected officials. Now there is a way to learn how much school district employees are paid.
TransparentCalifornia.com, a conservative nonprofit based in Orange County, has posted that data online. According to Robert Fellner, the group's projects manager, Freedom of Information requests were sent to every school district in California — more than 1,000 in all.
Not all districts cooperated, including San Diego Unified.
Fellner said his group originally contacted each San Diego school district individually, but then the San Diego County Office of Education responded saying it would handle all requests for county districts.
When the county turned over the information, however, SDUSD was not included. That doesn't mean SDUSD isn't going to hand it over.
“We’re hopeful that its laying around and in their database and should be straight-forward,” Fellner said. "But I’ve done too many of these to put money in the bank until I see the data in front of me.”
San Diego Unified said they will respond to Transparent California's request, but they won't be handing over the information just yet. SDUSD only has to say that it officially received the request and either give a time frame for handing over the data or report that it is fighting the request.
District size doesn't seem to be a factor when it comes to salary.
According to Transparent California, the Julian Elementary School District has 192 employees and its superintendent earns more than $178,000 and has a benefits package valued at nearly $30,000. While Del Mar Union Elementary has 2,390 employees and its superintendent earns just less than $165,000 and has a nearly $20,000 benefits package.
Teachers on the other hand seem to be making comparable salaries across district lines. On the high end, teachers at both Julian Elementary and Del Mar Unified can earn more than $100,000 a year.
Donna Frye, president of the government transparency group Californians Aware says the political leanings of Transparent California aren't important.
“The information is the information, the dollar values shown and the salaries that is factual set of numbers,” Frye said.
Frye also said she’d like to see a list of how much employees for government contractors are paid.
