Total Compensation
In general, our survey found that the State lags other public employers in California in total compensation. However, the lag is due to the State’s lower base salaries, not the benefits package, where the State is generally competitive with other public employers.
The State leads other public employers in total compensation in just one benchmark class (Engineering Geologist), although by less than 2 percent. For all other benchmark classes, the State lags other public employers. In most cases, the lag is 15 - 30 percent. The greatest lag, nearly 56 percent, is for Respiratory Care Practitioner.
The average statewide lag is higher for executive and managerial classes (23 percent) than it is for the journey-level classes (20 percent).
Regionally, the State’s public sector lag is the greatest in the Bay area. The average public sector lag by region is show below.
| Region | % State's total compensation lags |
|---|---|
| Bay Area | 32.82 |
| Los Angeles | 20.41 |
| Sacramento | 16.29 |
| San Diego | 13.82 |
| Central Valley | 13.76 |
Table 3 compares the State’s total compensation and salaries with other public sector employers.
As described earlier in this report, the data we collected from the private sector does not lend itself to comparisons between the State’s total compensation for each of the benchmark classes and what is provided in the private sector. However, in the following sections of this report we compare salaries and benefit programs separately, using aggregate data from the private sector.