California state worker pay database updated with 2023 wages, overtime for civil servants
The Sacramento Bee’s State Worker pay database has been updated with data for 2023.
The state paid roughly 266,000 civil service employees a total of about $24.4 billion in the 2023 calendar year, according to updated pay data from the State Controller’s Office. That includes full-time, part-time and intermittent workers, and excludes employees at the California State University and the University of California.
The total is up about 3.2% from 2022, when the state paid roughly $23.6 billion to civil service workers. The increase in pay from 2022 to 2023 was much smaller than the 8.5% increase seen from 2021 to 2022.
Last year’s pay increase roughly matches the pace of inflation from July 2022 to July 2023. In addition, the state added a little more than 2,000 civil service workers to its payroll last year.
Investment officers at the state’s retirement systems again topped the list of highest-paid employees. California’s rules for paying people in those jobs differ from the rest of the state’s civil service, to enable the retirement funds to hire in the competitive world of finance.
Like last year, top officers at the California State Teachers’ Retirement System received the biggest payouts. Four of the five highest-paid state employees worked at CalSTRS, according to the data.
The system’s longtime chief investment officer, Christopher Ailman, topped the list with about $1.85 million in total pay. That included $612,000 in regular pay and about $1.2 million in other pay. Ailman announced he will retire in June after serving 20 years as top investment executive at the state’s teachers’ pension fund.
CalPERS Chief Investment Officer Nicole Musicco earned $1.61 million, according to the data. Musicco left the fund in September due to family circumstances after less than two years of service. The third highest-paid state employee was CalSTRS Deputy Chief Investment Officer Scott Chan, who netted $1.16 million.
All told, 133 state workers earned at least $500,000 in total pay last year. Most of those workers are financial professionals, agency executives or doctors in the state prison system.
State civil service workers based in Sacramento County earned about $8.09 billion in 2023 pay, far more than state workers in any other county.
California state scientists, the only state civil service union without a contract, saw an increase in both personnel and total pay from 2022 to 2023. A total of 5,967 state scientists — including rank-and-file, supervisors and managers — earned $551.9 million last year. That’s a staffing increase of 8.2% and a payroll bump of 7.9%, according to the controller’s office data. Most of the growth in workers came in three positions: environmental scientist, senior environmental scientist (specialist) and senior environmental scientist (supervisory).
The controller also separately issued salary data for the California State University system. CSU workers earned about $4.14 billion in 2023, up about 0.5% from 2022.
The system paid workers with “faculty” or “lecturer” in their job title about $1.87 billion in 2023, down slightly from 2022. After a brief recent strike, the CSU system and faculty tentatively agreed on a 5% raise, retroactive to July, for the 2023-24 school year, and another 5% raise for the next school year, contingent on the state budget.
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