The salaries and benefits of firefighters, housing inspectors,
police and other government employees have been declared public
information in a landmark state supreme court decision.
Morgan Hill – The salaries and benefits of firefighters, housing inspectors, police and other government employees have been declared public information in a landmark state supreme court decision.
The ruling handed down Monday by the California Supreme Court concludes three years of legal wrangling over how much information cities, counties and other public agencies must disclose about their employees’ pay and benefits. The court decision, which requires the release of names and details of pay, supersedes case law that the cities of Gilroy and Morgan Hill have invoked to refuse disclosing such information.
“Openness in government is essential to the functioning of a democracy,” the court decision stated, going on to cite a 20-year-old court ruling: ” ‘Implicit in the democratic process is the notion that government should be accountable for its actions. In order to verify accountability, individuals must have access to government files. Such access permits checks against the arbitrary exercise of official power and secrecy in the political process.’ ”
The lawsuit, originally filed four years ago by Contra Costa Times Inc. against the City of Oakland, targets employees who earn $100,000 or more annually. But the wording of the Monday decision suggests that all salary information is public record, according to Tom Newton, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
“I think that the holding emphatically stands with the idea that public employee salaries are not exempt from disclosure, regardless of amount,” Newton said. “If you read this decision, it says that employees don’t have a privacy interest in their salary information that outweighs the public’s right to know how it compensates its public employees.”
The decision comes months after Gilroy and Morgan Hill officials relied on the same case law to arrive at different opinions on the release of public employee pay information. Gilroy officials released precise salary data for all public employees in a form that was not “individually identifiable,” showing for instance, that a number of unnamed firefighters earned more than $100,000 due to overtime pay. Morgan Hill officials, meanwhile, refused to release any precise salary information, offering up only salary ranges.
“We followed the law prior to this decision and we will now follow the law articulated by the California Supreme Court,” said Morgan Hill City Manager Ed Tewes.
The Dispatch submitted a records request Monday with Gilroy Hill City Hall officials requesting specific salary and benefits information — and associated names — for all city employees. The Morgan Hill Times filed a similar request with Morgan Hill city officials.
“I believe it strips away the privacy of public employees,” said Jim Buessing, a Gilroy firefighter and spokesman of Gilroy Fire Local #2805. Buessing said a proper balancing of privacy interests and the public’s right to know would be met by releasing salary schedules and union contracts, along with figures normally included in the budget process on the department’s total over-time spending.
“The firefighter suffers ramifications on the street when somebody comes up to him and says, ‘Hey, you’re making all this money’ ” Buessing said. “It’s like asking a regular person to open their IRS documents.”
The state supreme court rejected such reasoning, however, stating that public employees do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to their salary information. The court also pointed to “overwhelming” evidence presented by Contra Costa Times Inc. that the release of names and associated salary information is common practice among government agencies, and that such information has often been used to uncover “nepotism, favoritism, or financial mismanagement in state and local government.”
Newton acknowledged that public employee unions may push state legislators to enact a law shielding salary data from public view.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Newton said. “This decision is so strong in favor of the public’s right to know … that I think it would be a very difficult job to convince the legislature that the supreme court’s decision was wrong.”
The 51-page decision makes reference to another ruling, also issued Monday, that found that the names and dates of employment for peace officers is also a matter of public record. Both rulings are available online at www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme.
