State Controller Malia M. Cohen on Thursday published the 2023 self-reported payroll data for California special districts on the Government Compensation in California website.

The data covers 161,903 positions and a total of over $10.79 billion in 2023 wages with over $3 billion in health and retirement costs for 3,046 special districts.

Special districts are governmental entities created by residents of a local community to deliver specialized services.

Data for 2023 shows the top 10 districts by total wages are transportation, health care, water and fire districts. The top 10 individual salaries reported are all in health care districts.

In Lake County, there are 29 special districts with 407, $12,079,612 in pay and $3,843,539 in benefits.

Lake County’s top five special districts, ranked by pay and staffing, are as follows:

• Northshore Fire Protection District; 58 employees; total wages, $2,114,042; total retirement and health contributions, $507,068.
• Lake County Fire Protection District : 42 employees; total wages, $2,043,341; total retirement and health contributions, $813,434.
• Kelseyville Fire Protection District: 24 employees; total wages, $1,540,436; total retirement and health contributions, $474,081.
• Clearlake Oaks Water District: 24 employees; total wages, $1,404,528; total retirement and health contributions, $330,124.
• Lakeport Fire Protection District: 25 employees; total wages, $1,361,637; total retirement and health contributions, $574,975.

California law requires cities, counties and special districts to annually report compensation data to the State Controller.

The State Controller’s Office also maintains and publishes state and California State University salary data.

The Controller’s Office reported that 124 special districts either did not file or filed a report that was noncompliant.

Of those, one of the noncompliant districts is in Lake County: Konocti County Water District.

The Government Compensation in California site contains pay and benefit information on more than two million government jobs in California, as reported annually by each entity.

Users of the site can view compensation levels on maps and search by region; narrow results by name of the district or by job title; and export raw data or custom reports.

As the chief fiscal officer of California, Controller Cohen is responsible for accountability and disbursement of the state’s financial resources.