Marin County Grand Jury
• 2024-2025
Follow-Up Report on Web Transparency of Agency Compensation Practices
⚠️ Aviso de traducción: Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 6 findings
F1
Many Marin public agencies fail to include on their websites either a link to the publicpay.ca.gov site 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.gov site showing compensation of their elected officials, officers, and employees using the formatted URL examples that are shown in Appendix A.
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.gov links to satisfy the requirement of Government Code Section 53908 that their link be “conspicuous.” Conspicuous locations for agencies are suggested in Table 2.
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.gov links 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 benefits, and other benefits such as equipment. A link to this report should be posted on the agency’s board or council web page.
Additional Recommendations 1
These recommendations are not explicitly linked to specific findings.
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R7No later than 90 days after the date of this report, agencies not audited in this report should review their websites for compliance with the legal requirements and higher public transparency standards recommended in Recommendations R1–R6 of this report and ensure that their websites include links to the publicpay.ca.gov site as shown in Appendix A.
Conclusions 1
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CL1To make informed decisions on matters of self-governance, the public needs to understand the workings of their public agencies, including the compensation of elected officials. Public transparency helps to maintain trust in the government. It makes responsive democracy work. By following the recommendations in this report, Marin’s public agency websites can come into compliance with state legal requirements. Following these recommendations will reduce the chance of errors and minimize the time needed to keep websites current. These changes also will improve public access to important information while increasing the transparency that is essential to good government in a democratic society.