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by SilasX 1438 days ago
WTF about, not just the compensation, but the fact that some of these show a salary of $200k with $2.X million in benefits. Like, what?

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/gateway-comm...

3 comments

Almost certainly the value of pensions. There are teachers on that list making $65k with "benefits" of 1mm, which is probably the NPV of ~20 years of pension income.
Doesn't seem to add up though, if you keyword search for "teacher" [0], the results are dominated by GCC with consistently elevated benefits. Once you get out of GCC dominated results, the numbers start looking a lot less surprising - until another GCC entry shows up.

[0] https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=teacher

My completely uneducated guess is that GCC reports the entire value of the DB pension as "income" for that year, whereas all other institutions correctly report just the increase in value.
Plausible, maybe the Superintendent/CEO would be willing to comment if contacted:

> Please feel free to contact me at cindy.petersen@gcccharters.org, or (916) 286-5129.

From https://www.gcccharters.org/welcome/

Yeah but it would only show that year’s gain in pension value.
This is why transparency is often nothing but a parlor trick. The raw information we are given is useless
This is why transparency is not just a "post it and done" process. It is a conversation.

At least with this much, you have a foundation to ask questions.

Transparent California is also incorrect in a lot of cases. I worked in CA as a seasonal worker and they reported what I would have earned if I worked full time for a year. In reality I only worked at that rate for 3 months making a quarter of what was reported. So I am not sure how much I trust it anymore.
The top salaries in that database match the people's names in this article: https://www.eastcountymagazine.org/east-county-superintenden...
Not seeing any of the Gateway Community Charter leaderboard on that list.