Who Determines California State Worker Pay?

Learn how classifications, salary ranges, steps, merit increases and negotiated raises determine what California state workers are paid.

Terms

Actual pay: What state employees really earned, from State Controller’s Office payroll data (median of the class, statewide). Reflects where people sit in the range, overtime excluded.
Alternate Range: A lettered salary tier (A, B, C…) within one classification, usually distinguished by experience or education.
Alternate Range Criteria: The numbered rule for moving between a class’s ranges, such as "Range B after 6 months of satisfactory service in Range A." Movement between ranges is a pay increase without changing jobs.
Authorized pay: The salary range CalHR publishes for a class: what the state has agreed the job pays. Actual pay, by comparison, is what employees really earned per State Controller payroll data.
Bargaining Unit (BU): One of 21 groups of rank-and-file classifications that negotiates a single MOU (e.g. BU 1: professional and administrative). Supervisors and managers are "excluded" from bargaining and represented separately.
BLS: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Federal source of market-wage data (what all California employers pay for comparable work) and of the Consumer Price Index.
CalHR: California Department of Human Resources: The state agency that publishes the official pay scales (authorized ranges) and negotiates MOUs for the Governor.
CBID: Collective Bargaining Identification: The code for a job’s bargaining group, e.g. R01. First letter: R = rank-and-file, S = supervisory, M = managerial, C = confidential, E = excluded/exempt; the number is the bargaining unit.
CEA: Career Executive Assignment: A high-level managerial assignment in the civil service, exempt from bargaining; CEA positions have their own salary structure set by CalHR.
Class Code: The four-digit number that uniquely identifies a job classification in the CalHR pay scales. Stable even when a class is retitled.
Classification: Every state job belongs to a classification: a title, a class code, and a published salary range. About 5,500 classifications are active today.
CPI: Consumer Price Index: The standard measure of price inflation. "Real" figures on this site mean CPI-adjusted, using the West-region CPI-W (the index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, which also drives Social Security COLAs) unless noted.
Derived: Inferred from patterns in the pay-scale data itself (e.g. a uniform range increase across a unit read as a GSA) rather than transcribed from an MOU. Directionally reliable, not authoritative.
Pay differential: Extra pay on top of the salary range for specific conditions: recruitment and retention locations, night shifts, special skills, and similar. Published by CalHR as Section 14 of the pay scales.
Footnotes: Short codes CalHR attaches to a pay line to flag special rules, such as an extra step above the range top, a different probationary period, or alternate range criteria. Each code maps to a specific note published in the pay scales.
Furlough: State-ordered unpaid days off. In 2009 and 2010, two and then three days a month, roughly a 9% to 14% pay cut.
GSA: General Salary Adjustment: An across-the-board raise to the pay ranges of every class in a bargaining unit, negotiated in the MOU. Usually the whole range moves; occasionally a round applies only to the top step.
Market ratio: SCO actual median ÷ BLS California median: Compares the median pay state employees actually earned with the California median for comparable work across all employers. A ratio of 1× means the two medians are equal.
MCR: Modified Classification Review: A code (usually 1 or 2) identifying the level of authority to hire above the range minimum.
MOU: Memorandum of Understanding: The contract between a union and the state: raises, leave programs like PLP, retirement and health contributions, working conditions.
MSA: Merit Salary Adjustment: The yearly ~5% "step" increase inside your salary range, automatic with satisfactory performance, until you reach the top of the range.
NT: Non-Tenure: Marks positions that are limited-term or otherwise non-permanent.
OPEB: Other Post-Employment Benefits: The payroll deduction that prefunds retiree health care. The rate is bargained per unit, currently between 0% and 4% of pay.
Pay Letter: A CalHR notice that records an official pay action, including each General Salary Increase with its bargaining unit, effective date, and exact percentage. Pay Letters are the authoritative source for these raises.
PCE price index: The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure. Typically shows lower cumulative inflation than CPI.
PEPRA: Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act (2013): Pension reform: employees first hired after Jan 1, 2013 get a lower pension formula and higher contribution requirements than "classic" members.
PLP: Personal Leave Program: A negotiated pay cut traded for leave credits. PLP 2020, for example, cut pay 9.23% for 16 hours of leave a month in most units.
PML: Personnel Management Liaison memo: The memo series DPA and later CalHR used to announce pay and personnel actions, 1982 to 2017. For excluded and exempt employees it is the record a Pay Letter would be for a rank-and-file unit.
Probationary Period: The months of probation for the class before permanent status, typically 6 or 12.
Salary reduction: A cut to the published pay range itself. In 1991 the state cut manager and supervisor ranges 4.76%.
Salary restoration: Reverses a salary reduction. In July 1992 ranges returned to their pre-cut level; it is not a raise.
Salary range: A classification’s pay is a range with a minimum and a maximum. New hires usually start near the minimum.
Schematic Code: An alphanumeric code grouping classes by occupational series in the pay scales.
SCO: State Controller’s Office: Runs the state payroll. Source of the actual-earnings data on this site.
SDI: State Disability Insurance: The 1.3%-of-pay payroll deduction for disability coverage (some units have Nonindustrial Disability Insurance instead).
SISA: Special In-grade Salary Adjustment: An extra step above the normal top of range granted to specific classes, marked by footnote in the pay scales.
SSA: Special Salary Adjustment: A targeted raise to specific classifications’ ranges, usually where the state struggles to recruit or retain.
Step: Each year of satisfactory service earns a step increase of roughly 5% (the MSA) until you reach the top of the range. A typical range spans about five steps.
Top step: The maximum monthly salary of your range. Most career employees sit here.
Top-step raise: A negotiated raise that moves only the top of the salary range, leaving the minimum unchanged. The 2010 contracts granted one across 43 bargaining units effective July 2013; some units (attorneys, crafts) have received them in recent rounds as "Special Salary Adjustments at the maximum".
Variable compensation (Section 8): Some classes are paid on separate salary schedules published in Section 8 of the pay scales, such as the 220-day academic-year schedules for correctional educators. For these classes the standard range understates scheduled pay.
WWG: Work Week Group: The overtime-eligibility code: WWG 2 earns overtime; E and SE are exempt (no overtime pay).