Request #8785

We are requesting a copy of Garden Grove's Employee Compensation Report for the 2022 calendar year under the provisions of California Gov. Code § 7920, the California Public Records Act.

The purpose of this request is to obtain records which provide a complete and comprehensive account of Garden Grove's total costs associated with employee full names and compensation.

Specifically, this request seeks an accounting, by full name and job title, of total gross wages paid to each employee and the total cost incurred by the employer for providing retirement and health benefits.

Note that the State Controller’s “Government Compensation in California” report does not contain the names of employees and therefore does not satisfy this request. If your response is to send us a copy of that report, that will simply delay the process and take more of your time as we will reject it as insufficient to satisfy this request in full.

Please also note that saving your original spreadsheet in the form of a PDF and sending that to us is also not sufficient. Please also note that saving your original spreadsheet in the form of a PDF and sending that to us is also not sufficient. Doing this will simply result in a need for you to take more time to respond, given that a PDF copy is not the original data, which is what we are requesting.

As a reminder, per Gov. Code § 7922.585(a) “Nothing in this section is intended to affect the public record status of information merely because it is stored in a computer. Public records stored in a computer shall be disclosed as required by this chapter.”

In an effort to standardize how this information is reported, please include the following categories in your response:

Employee Name (full name, including first and last)

Position/Job Title (“City Manager”, “Police Officer”, etc.)

Annual Salary Minimum & Maximum

Total Regular Pay

Overtime Pay

Other Pay (any additional forms of pay that are not reported in Regular Pay)

Retirement Contribution Costs - All forms of employer-paid retirement contributions, deferred compensation, etc., including Unaccrued Actuarial Liability if applicable. Please split out per the standard State Controller’s Office categories.

Healthcare Contribution Costs - All forms of employer-paid health and welfare benefits, such as health, dental and vision insurance benefits.

In the event Garden Grove is not in possession of a record of this nature, we request copies of any other record or records that contain information, even if only in part, that is responsive to the purpose of this request — employee name in conjunction with their compensation data for the period requested.

Please provide the requested materials or, per Gov. Code § 7922.535, a timeline along which they will be made available by, no later than ten days from the date of this request.

Per Gov. Code § 7922.570(a), we ask that you provide the records in an Excel spreadsheet format.

As a reminder, Gov. Code § 7922.600(a) instructs public agencies to "assist requester in finding records and information that are responsive to the request or to the purpose of the request."

It is not necessary to prepare a boilerplate PDF document response sent to us as an attachment to email in order to respond with your ETA. We are happy to accept a simple response giving us the estimated date you will be able to provide the data requested.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions that you might have.

Thank you.
Municipalities Researcher
Transparent California
muni@transparentcalifornia.com