Data Dictionary & Field Change Log

Data Dictionary

This Data Dictionary offers definitions for all of the fields in a file. Each file contains the data reported by various employers of an employer type for a calendar year.

Last Updated: 6/29/2021

Field #	Field Name	Field Definition
1	Year	The calendar year of reported data.
2	EmployerType	There are eleven employer types: State Departments, Counties, Cities, Special Districts, Superior Courts, Fairs & Expos, First 5, K-12 Education, Community College Districts, California State University, and University of California.
3	EmployerName	The name of the reporting employer (such as City of Sacramento, Los Angeles County, Secretary of State, etc.).
4	DepartmentOrSubdivision	A section of a larger organization that has specific duties. For State Departments, this field contains the subdivision where applicable.
5	Position	The job title provided by the employer. Position listings on this website do not distinguish between full-time and part-time employees.
6	ElectedOfficial	A person elected to office or appointed to fill out the remainder of a term. Information on elected officials is not available before 2013.
7	Judicial	Includes positions at county superior courts, the state Supreme Court and the State Courts of Appeal. Judicial information is not available before 2013.
8	OtherPositions	If an employee held two or more positions concurrently with the employer during the course of the calendar year, the other positions the employee held are listed in this field. The positions are separated by the "\|" character.
9	MinPositionSalary	The minimum annual salary as reported by the employer for the particular position. Position listings on this site do not distinguish between full-time and part-time employees.
10	MaxPositionSalary	The maximum annual salary as reported by the employer for the particular position. Position listings on this site do not distinguish between full-time and part-time employees.
11	ReportedBaseWage	Employee pay information from cities, counties, and special districts for 2009 and 2010 is contained in this field. This field is only used for data before 2011.
12	RegularPay	The dollar amount paid to an employee for their normal hours worked, including any leave time used and/or paid holidays.
13	OvertimePay	The dollar amount paid to the employee for working more than normal hours.
14	LumpSumPay	The dollar amount paid to the employee for one-time cash-outs (including, but not limited to, paid excess vacation and sick leave, and legal settlements).
15	OtherPay	The dollar amount paid to the employee for any other pay not reported as regular pay, overtime pay, or lump-sum pay (such as car allowances, meeting stipends, incentive pay, bonus pay, etc.). Elected Officials' pay reported on IRS Form 1099 also is included in Other Pay.
16	TotalWages	Total wages reported by the employer on a W-2, with some exceptions, and Elected Officials who received pay reported on IRS Form 1099. Amounts listed may include regular pay, overtime, cash payments for vacation and sick leave, and bonus payments. Position listings on this site do not distinguish between full-time and part-time employees. This is the sum of the Regular Pay, Overtime Pay, Lump-Sum Pay, and Other Pay fields. If the Reported Base Wage field contains data, this field is the same information.
17	DefinedBenefitPlanContribution	A portion of the total contribution paid by the employer towards the defined benefit plan for the year, which sometimes includes payment toward the unfunded liability. The defined benefit plan contribution is paid directly to the employer sponsored retirement plan and is not employee compensation for the calendar year. The amount of retirement benefits paid to an employee upon retirement are determined using a formula, based in part on an employee's age at retirement, final average salary, and length of service. Cities, counties, and special districts began reporting this data starting with 2011.
18	EmployeesRetirementCostCovered	The dollar amount paid by the employer, on behalf of the employee, toward the employee's share of defined benefit plan costs.
19	DeferredCompensationPlan	The dollar amount paid by the employer toward the employee's defined contribution/deferred compensation plan. This includes 401(a), (b), (k), 403(b), and 457 plans.
20	HealthDentalVision	The dollar amount paid by the employer toward the employee's health, dental, and/or vision care plans.
21	TotalRetirementAndHealthContribution	The dollar amount paid by the employer toward the employer sponsored retirement plan plus health, dental, and/or vision benefits for the employee and dependents. This is the sum of the Defined Benefit Plan Contribution, Employees Retirement Cost Covered, Deferred Compensation Plan, and Health Dental Vision fields. This amount sometimes includes payments toward the unfunded liability of the employer sponsored retirement plan.
22	PensionFormula	The pension formula that determines the monthly retirement payment for employees under a defined benefit plan.
23	EmployerURL	The web address (URL) of the reporting employer's website or human resources web page.
24	EmployerPopulation	The population of the reporting employer. This field only applies to cities and counties. Data for this field was obtained from the Department of Finance.
25	LastUpdatedDate	The date the employer's data was last updated.
26	EmployerCounty	The county that an employer is based in. State departments do not have county information.
27	SpecialDistrictActivities	For special district data only. The activities the special district performs, separated by the "\|" character. A special district may perform one or more activities. When a special district performs multiple activities, the employee may not contribute to performing all of the activities.
28	IncludesUnfundedLiability	"True" if this employer includes payments toward the unfunded liability of the employer sponsored retirement plan. Information on unfunded liability is not available before 2017.
29	SpecialDistrictType	For special district data only. Refers to a specific act or law which provided the authority for the formation of a special district.

Field Change Log

The Field Change Log describes changes to the fields in the file such as if a field has been added, removed, or renamed. This log does not describe changes to the data since they may occur on a daily basis due to employers reporting or revising their data.

8/28/2018

Added "SpecialDistrictType" field

6/26/2018

Added "IncludesUnfundedLiability" field

5/30/2018

Removed "Entity Group" field
Renamed "Entity Type" field to "EmployerType"
Renamed "Entity Name" field to "EmployerName"
Renamed "Department / Subdivision" field to "DepartmentOrSubdivision"
Renamed "Elected Official" field to "ElectedOfficial"
Renamed "Other Positions" field to "OtherPositions"
Renamed "Min Position Salary" field to "MinPositionSalary"
Renamed "Max Position Salary" field to "MaxPositionSalary"
Renamed "Reported Base Wage" field to "ReportedBaseWage"
Renamed "Regular Pay" field to "RegularPay"
Renamed "Overtime Pay" field to "OvertimePay"
Renamed "Lump-Sum Pay" field to "LumpSumPay"
Renamed "Other Pay" field to "OtherPay"
Renamed "Total Wages" field to "TotalWages"
Renamed "Defined Benefit Plan Contribution" field to "DefinedBenefitPlanContribution"
Renamed "Employees Retirement Cost Covered" field to "EmployeesRetirementCostCovered"
Renamed "Deferred Compensation Plan" field to "DeferredCompensationPlan"
Renamed "Health Dental Vision" field to "HealthDentalVision"
Renamed "Total Retirement and Health Cost" field to "TotalRetirementAndHealthContribution"
Renamed "Pension Formula" field to "PensionFormula"
Renamed "Entity URL" field to "EmployerURL"
Renamed "Entity Population" field to "EmployerPopulation"
Renamed "Last Updated" field to "LastUpdatedDate"
Renamed "Entity County" field to "EmployerCounty"
Renamed "Special District Activities" field to "SpecialDistrictActivities"

11/8/2017

Renamed "Min Classification Salary" field to "Min Position Salary"
Renamed "Max Classification Salary" field to "Max Position Salary"

5/31/2017

Renamed "Defined Benefit Plan" field to "Defined Benefit Plan Contribution"

3/8/2017

Removed disclaimer from first rows of all CSV files for stronger compliance with CSV format. The first row is now a header containing field names followed by rows of data.

3/25/2015

Added "Entity County" field
Added "Special District Activities" field
File name change - Removed "Higher Education" information from the file names for University of California, California State University, and Community College District

10/29/2014

"Entity Type" field can now return "First 5" and "Fairs & Expos" since First 5 and Fairs & Expos data is now available for download

10/2/2014

"Entity Type" field can now return "K-12 Education" since K-12 Education data is now available for download

8/6/2014

Added "Judicial" field
"Entity Type" field can now return "Superior Court" since Superior Court data is now available for download

7/14/2014

Added "Elected Official" field
Added "Other Positions" field
Removed "MultipositionPrimary" field since the data provided in the "Other Positions" field is more descriptive
Renamed "Lump Sum Pay" field to "Lump-Sum Pay" for correct spelling