Executive Summary

For several years, human resources professionals have recognized that because employers offer multi-faceted compensation programs, salary comparisons alone no longer provide valid measures of competitiveness in the labor market nor do such measures adequately track employer costs. Accordingly, DPA undertook the State’s first comprehensive survey in over 20 years to learn about the “total compensation” packages provided by other employers with whom we compete for employees.

Our effort to gather this information goes hand in hand with a recommendation by the California Performance Review, which in 2004 recommended the State of California take a more business-oriented approach to its compensation policies. CPR recommended that we use objective labor market data to guide policy makers in allocating compensation dollars. Although CPR cited salary surveys to collect this data, DPA expanded the focus to also include other compensation items.

This preliminary report of our findings comes with some caveats. First, our analysis of the data is by no means complete. However, rather than delay its release, we believe it serves the public interest to make the data and our initial findings available while we continue our review. We also invite others to review this data, which is why we’ve posted it on our Web site.

Another caveat concerns the private sector comparisons included in this preliminary report. Although our primary focus is total compensation (i.e., salary and benefits), the job-by-job comparisons we’ve reported for the private sector include only salaries. The private sector benefit information we used was less detailed than the public sector information, a shortcoming we hope to correct in future surveys.

We also must acknowledge that other factors contribute to decisions on the allocation of compensation dollars, such as working conditions and vacancy and turnover rates. These factors require further study.

Finally, we recognize that compensation lags alone, while significant, will not be the only driver in the discussion over how the State allocates limited resources. Inevitably, the State’s decision makers must balance a wide range of competing priorities which together with our human resources affect public satisfaction with our delivery of public services.

This survey marks our first step to developing a comprehensive database that the State employer can rely upon to make fiscally sound business decisions about its employee compensation policies. Assuredly, improvements and adjustments to the survey will be needed for future surveys – but this is a good beginning.