L.A. Controller Ron Galperin unveiled an updated version of his Payroll Explorer website, which allows anyone to search current and historical pay and benefits information for City of Los Angeles employees. Users can search by department, job or employee and will find data for this year, 2021, and each calendar year back through 2013. In addition, Payroll Explorer contains easy to access, detailed charts that reveal the City’s highest paid employees in each year, the departments with the highest total payroll and the largest departments by number of employees.
Created in 2013 as part of Control Panel L.A. — the City’s first Open Data portal, Controller Galperin has improved Payroll Explorer regularly, adding employee health care and pension costs in 2019, and now employee gender and ethnicity data. The Controller’s Office will update Payroll Explorer’s data every two weeks for each department with the exception of DWP, which will be updated quarterly.
“As Controller and paymaster for the City of Los Angeles, it is my job to ensure that City employees get paid, but I have also pushed to bring greater transparency to public salaries so that taxpayers understand where their money is going,” said Controller Galperin. “This is why I created Payroll Explorer and why I’ve worked hard to improve it year after year. Shining a light on spending also helps inform City residents and leaders about existing inequities in the workforce and encourages greater government accountability.”