State pay hikes soar - for some

Four years ago, barely three dozen California state workers earned a base salary of more than $200,000. Today, as the state faces a fiscal crisis, close to 1,000 state workers make that much.

Those and other large raises, many the result of lawsuits against the prison health care system, have cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars. They contrast starkly with the more modest raises of most rank-and-file state employees – and most private workers, according to a Bee analysis of data from the state Controller's Office that can be viewed at www.sacbee.com/statepay.

"This kind of growth in salaries is coming at a time when the state should be looking at ways to economize," said David Kline, communications director for the California Taxpayers Association, noting the state's projected $8 billion deficit between now and June 2009.

At the top are investment gurus at the state's retirement funds, prison doctors and administrators. At the bottom are janitors, typists and a variety of assistants.

And, The Bee found, the recent raises widened the gap between the two.

The median salary of the 20 percent of full-time state workers in the basement of the state's payroll increased about 10 percent from November 2003 to January 2007, rising from $32,244 to $35,532. The median salary of the top fifth of state workers jumped about 20 percent, from $77,604 to $92,808.

Jump in six-figure salaries

Working for the state will never be the best way to get rich quick, but it is becoming a lot easier to earn a six-figure salary.

As of February, about 17,500 permanent, full-time state employees made six-figure base salaries – about one of every 14. When November 2003 wages are adjusted for inflation, that number then stood at 11,000, or one in 21.

Not included in those counts were University of California workers, and an additional 11,500 of them also earn six-figure salaries, or one in 10.5, a Bee analysis of a separate database maintained by the university system shows. After adjusting for inflation, that number stood at 9,634 during 2003, or one in 12. Among UC workers, the Bee didn't count those making less than $20,000, and the UC system did not provide salaries for those toiling at UC's two national labs.

In fact, four of the top five highest-paid workers in the state worked for the University of California as of 2007, though two of them have since moved on. When the UC is included in the analysis of state government employees, California's highest-salaried worker is Mark Laret, chief executive officer at UC San Francisco Medical Center. Laret earns a base salary of $566,838.

However, when gross UC salaries including bonuses and other compensation – not available to compare all state workers – were included, several UC doctors actually earned over $1 million last year. And Cal football coach Jeff Tedford came out on top, grossing about $2.7 million.

(The Bee's numbers do not include community college employees or legislative staffers – like the UC and CSU information, data on those workers' salaries are maintained separately from data for other state workers. The newspaper still is attempting to get those numbers.)

Two-tiered system of pay

The highest-paid 10 percent of state workers earn a median annual salary of $107,580, up almost 25 percent from November 2003, state records show. That's a much bigger increase than most state employees saw; the median salary for all other state employees during that period rose 14 percent.

Both trends mirror the two-tier system of remuneration occurring in the private sector as well. Across California, median salaries for the highest-paid private-sector workers rose more quickly than the salaries of the rest of the work force from 2001 to 2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Officials at state agencies said workers getting top raises do vital jobs, ranging from prescribing medicine that keeps prisoners from attacking guards to managing billions of dollars in retirement savings. The pay increases, they say, were necessary to remain competitive with the private sector.

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Phillip Reese, (916) 321-1137. Director of Editorial Research Pete Basofin contributed to this report.