Where does Santa Barbara’s Money Go? Every year, Santa Barbara residents are told the same story: the city is strapped for cash. We hear about budget shortfalls, frozen positions, closed offices every other Friday, and warnings about structural deficits. And yet, year after year, millions of dollars continue to flow through a compensation system that most residents never get to see in detail.
Santa Barbara’s Surging Payroll
Thanks to Transparent California’s 2024 dataset — and after hours spent pulling apart columns the city doesn’t make easy to understand — what emerges is a picture of a city workforce that is not merely well-compensated, but in many cases extraordinarily so.
The Numbers Santa Barbara Residents Rarely See
According to the actual 2024 totals provided from Transparent California, the City of Santa Barbara spent:
Regular (Base) Pay: $115,362,324
“Overtime” Pay: $10,829,301
Other Pay: $10,845,512
Benefits: $29,867,492
Pension Debt: $35,797,773
Total Pay & Benefits: $202,702,402
Yes, the City of Santa Barbara spent $202,702,402.00 in 2024 on Payroll (ALL Employees — Police, Fire, Civilian, Full-Time, Part-Time, Hourly).
If you’ve ever asked yourself or wondered why taxes keep rising, that’s the reason.
City employees are paid and benefits, “overtime,” pensions, and other pay is dispensed and accounted for before a single consultant contract, capital project, redesign study, or department program layer, is added.
Other Pay
The least transparent, most misunderstood, and fastest-growing slice of employee compensation is the category of “Other Pay.” It can include: (below are two lists I found)
List number 1
Cash-outs of unused leave
“Supplemental” pay
Incentives, stipends, and bonuses
Auto allowances
“Longevity” pay
Specialty certifications
One-time payouts when contracts allow it
It also can include List number 2
Cash-outs of unused leave
Specialty pay
Certification pay
Stipends
Retroactive pay
Premiums
“Longevity” bonuses
One-time payouts
Uniform and equipment allowances
Vehicle and housing allowance
In Short: Everything city employees receive that isn’t salary, overtime, or benefits.
And Santa Barbara spent $10,845,512 on it in 2024. That is ten million, eight hundred forty-five thousand, five hundred twelve dollars…
That’s real money.
Money residents rarely, if ever, hear about.
Top 25 Highest-Paid City Employees (Excluding Police & Fire)
Before we go further, it’s important to make one thing clear:
I intentionally did NOT include Police or Fire from the TOP-25 analysis.
Why?
Because those men and women are the people who respond when our homes, our families, and our safety, are on the line. But their numbers are still included in the total cost, because taxpayers pay for all of it.
This analysis focuses on civilian departments — the people whose compensation rarely makes headlines but whose pay packages quietly shape our city budget.
A more complete list of City of Santa Barbara Employees can be found here on Transparent California’s website.
Meanwhile: We’ve Been Asked to Bail the City Out—Twice
If Santa Barbara really “has to pay top dollar to get the best and brightest”— then why are taxpayers constantly asked to fix the budget?
At some point, the results need to match the price tag.
RECAP
Santa Barbara voters have already approved two sales tax increases—Measure C and Measure I—both presented as necessary to keep the city from financial crisis. Yet even after those increases, residents continue to hear about frozen positions, deferred maintenance, service reductions, staffing shortages, and every-other-Friday closures. More is coming….
The city’s own 2024 payroll numbers paint a clearer picture. Santa Barbara spent $115 million on base salaries, another $10.8 million on overtime, the same amount again on “Other Pay,” nearly $30 million on benefits, and almost $36 million on pension debt. Altogether, total compensation surpassed $202 million. When payroll alone costs that much, it’s reasonable for residents to ask why the city keeps insisting there isn’t enough money.
City Hall often argues that high salaries are essential to attract top-tier talent. But if that were true, the public would see top-tier performance. Instead, we see rising consultant contracts, maintenance pushed back year after year, a State Street promenade that never seems to move forward, growing pension obligations, and yet another “structural deficit” being discussed. When taxpayers are paying more but receiving less, the problem is not a lack of revenue.
It’s a lack of priorities.
One of the clearest examples is “Other Pay,” a category almost no resident hears about, but which quietly absorbs millions. It covers everything from cash-outs and stipends to premiums and specialty pay. Last year alone, Santa Barbara spent $10.8 million on it. This isn’t a rounding error or an occasional expense; it’s a recurring cost that grows every year with almost no public explanation.
Despite two tax increases, the city continues to struggle with basic functions while compensation continues climbing. Years ago, Santa Barbara faced a similar situation with its municipal golf course—mismanaged, financially unstable, and losing money. A previous council, led by Francisco, White, Hotchkiss, and Rowse, restructured the operation and turned it into a stable, well-run program. The model worked then. It could work again.
Labor That Didn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime
(Bonnie, can you share the following story with your readers, please. Thank you, James )
Mother Nature hammered Santa Barbara with a biblical downpour, turning palm-lined streets into obstacle courses of fallen fronds. But the moment the skies cleared Monday afternoon, one local man was already sprinting into action—and he wasn’t even on the clock.
Picture this: Cabrillo Boulevard, still dripping wet. A lone figure is hauling massive palm branches like a man possessed, bobbing and weaving across the street to gather as many as he can, as fast as he can. From a distance he looked like the most gung-ho city worker you’ve ever seen—music blasting from his white pickup, energy cranked to eleven.
Wait, something’s not right!
No city decal on the truck. No government paycheck or pension. Just pure, unfiltered community spirit.
I whipped a U-turn, tailed the mystery man to the Hilton Santa Barbara parking lot, and called out to him as he started to launch his second monster load of the day into the back dumpster like an Olympic shot-putter.
Meet William Alexander of Santa Barbara: Army veteran, proud American, and hands-down the fastest solo cleanup crew in the 805.
“I saw it needed doing, so I did it,” Alexander shrugged modestly. Working private security, he’d carved out a few free hours before his next shift and decided Santa Barbara’s streets deserved them.
While many of us were shaking out umbrellas and scrolling videos of a flooded State Street, this young vet was out there serving his community the only way he knows how—full throttle, no applause required.
The storm brought the rain.
William Alexander brought the sunshine.
Maybe our budget crisis isn’t about revenue.
Maybe it’s about priorities.
Community Calendar:
Got a Santa Barbara event for our community calendar? Fenkner@sbcurrent.com
SB Current should make William Alexander the guest of honor at the next GOP bash. Give that guy a medal! And his own horse in the next Fiesta parade — yes, a horse for that man! He embodies the spirit of this battered old town! He’ll get more cheers than the decrepit Boomer No Kings parade any day.
Thank you Bonnie for your ongoing efforts in blowing the whistle on public employee excess. What is the optimal number of public employees based on SB population? My understanding is there is 1 employee for every 59 population? The state average being 113? Numbers can be deceiving and confusing. One city in Orange County, Vernon, has more employees than the population!
The obvious concern is the ticking pension time bomb that will eventually go off. All compounded by the state deficit of $19 billion!
With business and population heading for the exits from the high costs of California, then what? Bankruptcy, receivership, financial collapse, meltdown of the municipal bond market?
https://www.ocregister.com/2025/07/25/which-cities-are-the-most-well-staffed/amp/