In the wake of rising public concern about the salaries of public employees, on Friday Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the launch of a new state Web page that will make salaries of top administration officials public and transparent.

The new Web page will be part of the Reporting Transparency Web site, www.reportingtransparency.ca.gov, which Schwarzenegger launched in March 2009.

Last week at a budget discussion in San Diego Schwarzenegger called for greater transparency and accountability of public employee salaries by government at all levels.

When the Reporting Transparency site was launched last year, Schwarzenegger issued a memorandum to all governor's staff, all agency secretaries and all department directors directing them to make publicly available on the governor's Web site the statement of economic interests, Form 700, and the travel expense claims for the governor's office senior staff and deputies, agency secretaries, agency undersecretaries and department directors.

The site made information regarding statement of economic interests, Form 700 and travel expense claim forms readily available to the public. Now comes the addition of the salary information.

“Californians have the right to know what's happening with their money and how it's being spent,” Schwarzenegger said in a Friday statement. “Public employees and elected officials work for the citizens of this state and the salaries of public employees and elected officials should be easily accessible.”

In addition to Schwarzenegger's Friday announcement, earlier this week State Controller John Chiang reported that the state was implementing new compensation reporting requirements for all California cities and counties, with the information to be posted on the state controller’s Web site, www.sco.ca.gov, starting in November, as Lake County News has reported.

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