Calif. state pay increased $1.1 billion last year
By Jon Ortiz and Phillip Reese, Sacramento Bee
California state workers’ salaries rose a total $1.1 billion last year, according to payroll data, while the number of state employees also grew.
The State Controller’s Office wrote paychecks for $16.43 billion in 2014, up 7 percent from the year before. The increase followed three years of essentially flat payroll costs for the state.
Meanwhile, the number of full-time and part-time state workers grew from about 242,000 to about 245,000, or almost 2 percent.
The data, which exclude state university employees and legislative staff, show the largest dollar-amount payroll increases occurred in the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (up $279 million); the prison system’s medical caregiver, California Correctional Health Care Services ($91 million); the Department of State Hospitals ($82 million); the California Highway Patrol ($71 million); and the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection ($68 million).
