California's full-time civil service state employees saw their pay fall more than 5 percent last year, according to a new Bee analysis of state payroll data that excludes the university systems and the Legislature.
State workers' average base pay fell from $63,815 in 2008 to $60,355 in 2009. Average total pay, which includes overtime and other pay, dropped from $70,627 to $66,813. Both measures represent a 5.4 percent decline.
The Bee's resident number cruncher, Phillip Reese, culled the numbers from data provided by the State Controller's Office.
Click the following link to see a breakdown of state employee median pay by prominent job class and the methodology behind the numbers. (The median is the point at which half the wages are less and half are more.)
|
Pay
group |
Most
common job titles |
Median
total pay 2008 |
Median
total pay 2009 |
Percentage
change 2008-09 |
|
Bottom
20 percent |
Typist,
Custodian |
$34,678 |
$32,976 |
-4.9% |
|
Next
20 percent |
Staff
Services Analyst, Employment Program Representative |
$50,143 |
$47,501 |
-2.5% |
|
Next
20 percent (represents
overall median total pay) |
Associate
Governmental Program Analyst |
$66,006 |
$61,800 |
-6.3%
|
|
Next
20 percent |
Transportation
Engineer, Correctional Officer |
$83,938 |
$78,460 |
-6.5% |
|
Top
20 percent |
Highway
Patrol Officer, Registered Nurse |
$110,858 |
$105,297 |
-5.2% |
The
median is the figure at which half
the state workers included in the statistics were paid less and half were paid
more.
Note:
Statistics include full-time civil service employees not working for the Legislature
or universities.
Methodology:
Excluded all employees who received a retirement payout in either year. Excluded
full-time employees the state shows making less than $15,000. The above figures
likely include employees who only worked part of the year. An alternative
methodology that included only workers on the payroll during 2007, 2008 and 2009
yielded medians about $1,000-$4,000 higher than the figures above. Overall
state pay from 2008 to 2009 fell about 4 percent.
That figure is lower than the above largely because of A) hiring and B) vacation
and retirement payouts.
The Author
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