Following three years of flat payroll costs for the state, California state workers’ total annual incomes increased $1.1 billion in 2014, with some of the largest increases occurring among health-related agencies, according to new state payroll data, the Sacramento Bee reports (Ortiz, Sacramento Bee, 1/23).
The Sacramento Bee’s State Worker Salary Database recently was updated with 2014 data from State Controller’s Office payroll records (Ortiz, “The State Worker,” Sacramento Bee, 1/23).
Details of Pay Increases
In total, state workers were paid $16.43 billion in 2014 — up by 7% from 2013. Further, the number of the state workers increased by about 2%, from 242,000 in 2013 to about 245,000 in 2014.
According to the data, the largest payroll increases occurred in the:
-State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which had a $279 million payroll increase from 2013 to 2014;
-California Correctional Health Care Services, which had a $91 million payroll increase; and
-Department of State Hospitals, which had an $82 million payroll increase.
H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the state Department of Finance, said some of the increases “are due to natural growth in program areas,” and might indicate that empty positions resulting from a record number of retirements are being filled (Sacramento Bee, 1/23).
Highest-Paid Health Workers
The data show that the highest-paid employees in each of the state’s health-related departments and agencies in 2014 were:
-Jackson Wong, chief physician and surgeon at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations, with an annual income of about $569,000;
-Robert Moreno, a staff psychiatrist at the Department of State Hospitals, with an annual income of about $457,000;
-Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, with an annual income of about $313,000;
-Ron Chapman, director of the California Department of Public Health, with an annual income of about $231,000;
-Howard Backer, director of the Emergency Medical Services Authority, with an annual income of about $193,000;
-Diana Dooley, secretary of the California Health And Human Services Agency, with an annual income of $182,000;
-Michelle Rouillard, director of the state Department of Managed Health Care, with an annual income of about $153,000;
-Janette Casillas, executive director of the state Department of Health Care Services’ Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, with an annual income of about $129,000; and
-Ronald Washington, executive director of the California Health Facilities Financing Authority, with an annual income of about $120,000 (Payroll database, 1/22).