Marin County Grand Jury • 2024-2025 • Agency Response
Response to: Marin's Telecommunications Disconnect

"Follow-Up Report on Web

Published: June 01, 2020 26 pages
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Findings and Recommendations 6 findings

F1
Many Marin public agencies fail to include on their websites either a link to the publicpay.ca.govsile showing compensation for their elected officials, officers, and employees, or a table showing such data. The Grand Jury determined that these agencies fail to comply with the requirements of Government Code Section 53908.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
"To comply with the intent of Government Code Section 53908, no later than 90 days after the date of this report, agencies should include on their websites a link to the publicpay.ca.govsile showing compensation of their elected officials, officers, and employees using the formatted URL examples that are shown in
F2
Any link to compensation data on an agency's website that takes more than five minutes or three clicks from the home page to locate, does not reasonably satisfy the intent of the Government Code that the information be easily located and "conspicuous" on the agency's website.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
"No later than 90 days after the date of this report, agencies should modify the location of their existing publicpay.ca.govtinks to satisfy the requirement of Government Code Section 53908 that their link be "conspicuous." Conspicuous locations for agencies are suggested in Table 2." Response: MCTD staff conducted aself-audit to verify conspicuousness of its publicpay.ca.gov links in May 2020. It was determined the link to staff and officer compensation is easily located on the Staff Directory page. The link to board compensation, added in May 2020, is easily located near the top of the Board of Directors page.
F3
Any link to publicpay.ca.gov on an agency's website that fails to go directly to the agency's current compensation data on that website does not satisfy the intent of the Government Code that information be easily located.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
"No later than 90 days after the date of this report, agencies should modify their existing publicpay.ca.govtinks so that they provide a direct link to their current compensation data on the state site. To eliminate the need for annual updates, the URL used for the link should exclude any parameter specifying a year. Formatted URL examples are shown on Appendix A." Response: The link modifications recommended in R3 were implemented by Marin Transit staff in May 2020.
F4
Regarding compensation policies for elected officials, many public agencies do not provide the public with easy access to information regarding salary, meeting fees or stipends (including compensation for serving as liaison to other advisory committees, councils and forums), reimbursements, health and retirement benefits, and other benefits such as equipment.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
"No later than 90 days after the date of this report, in addition to any other compensation links, agencies should include a link on their board or council web pages that leads directly to their "Elected Officials" page on the publicpay.ca.gov site, conforming to the format suggested on Appendix A." Response: The addition of a link to Board compensation was added in May 2020. Added links can be found in the response to Recommendation R1 (above).
F5
Regarding detailed disclosure of total compensation paid, most public agencies do not break out all components of compensation paid to their elected officials, including salary, meeting fees or stipends (including compensation for serving as liaison to other advisory committees, councils and forums), reimbursements, health and retirement benefits, and other benefits such as equipment.
Related Recommendations (1)
R5
"No later than 120 days after the date of this report, agencies should include on their board or council web pages a comprehensive description of their policies regarding all compensation paid to elected officials specifying, at a minimum, salary, meeting fees or stipends (including compensation for serving as liaison to other advisory committees, councils and forums), reimbursements, health and retirement benefits, and other benefits such as equipment." Response: As a result of the 2016 Grand Jury Web Transparency investigation, a statement was added to the Board of Directors page https://marintransit.orq/board describing compensation paid to board members. Marin County Transit District Board of Directors do not receive compensation for service on the Board.
F6
By comparison to other public agencies, Marin Municipal Water District annually publishes an exemplary report on its website of total compensation paid to its elected officials for salary, meeting fees or stipends (including compensation for serving as liaison to other advisory committees), councils and forums, reimbursements, health and retirement benefits, and other benefits such as equipment. Marin Transit Response to Findings • We agree with Findings F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 and F6 GRAND JURY RECOMMENDATIONS The Grand Jury requested that Marin County Transit District respond to the following
Related Recommendations (1)
R6
"No later than 120 days after the date of this report, agencies should adopt a practice to compile and publish each year an annual report detailing the compensation actually paid to their elected officials for the previous calendar year. Compensation disclosures should include, at a minimum, salary, meeting fees or stipends (including compensation for serving as liaison to other advisory committees, councils and forums), reimbursements, health and retirement 4 benefits, and other benefits such as equipment. A link to this report should be posted on the agency's board or council web page." Response: Marin County Transit District Board of Directors do not receive compensation for service on the Board and a statement to that effect is posted on https://marintransit.orq/board.

Conclusions 1