How does the California State Assembly report its spending and staff salaries? Are these reports consistent? This visualization was released in conjunction with the CACS report on Assembly Staff Spending. The report showed that there were discrepancies between assembly spending as reported by the Assembly Rules Committee on August 26, 2011 and as reported by the Assembly payroll data, which was released on May 26, 2011. That report can be found here: http://beta.cacs.org/article/14.

Instructions: Use the map on the left to select an Assemblymember's district. Use the bar graph on the right to select a category of Assembly staff spending (click and hold 'Shift' to select multiple categories). Use the graph in the lower left to select individual Assembly members (click and hold 'Shift' to select multiple Assembly members). Use the graph in the lower right to see monthly salaries for individual staffers (chiefs of staff are in orange). Use the drop down menus to select a particular Assembly member, sort the list of members by different criterion, or to see breakdowns of Assembly members' spending by categories.

Sources:

(1) Assembly staff payroll data can be found on the California Assembly website here: http://assembly.ca.gov/salaries (click on "Assembly Staff Salaries"). The visualization is based on data from May 28, 2011. The data located at the link are the most updated data provided by the assembly. To see the May 28 data, inquire at info@cacs.org. Basic checks on the validity of the data were drawn from similar data from August 2010 and February 2011. To calculate 8-month salaries, we multiplied the monthly salaries by 8.

(2) Expenditures data were released by the Rules Committee on August 26, 2011 and can also be found on the Assembly website, http://assembly.ca.gov/salaries.

CACS is not responsible for the accuracy of data received from outside sources. Please email us at info@cacs.org if you believe you have found an error in the visualization.