California Bill would ban disclosure of police officers' salaries

Oakland Tribune reports:

An amendment to a bill introduced Monday seeks to push police salary and other basic information about officers back out of public view.

The bill comes on the heels of two state Supreme Court decisions rulings last year finding that salaries and other basic information about police officers are indeed public records.

Assembly Bill 1855, authored by Assemblyman Anthony J. Portantino, D-La Canada Flintridge, would declare that the salaries of police officers as well as their badge numbers and individual identities are private and cannot be publicly disclosed.

The bill's sponsor is the Peace Officers Research Association of California, a group that lobbies for officers.

The state Supreme Court

last year ruled in favor of the

Contra Costa Times that the salaries of police officers, as well as all other government employees, are a public record. The court also ruled in favor of the Los Angeles Times that the names and basic employment information, such as an officer's name, are public record.

Portantino's bill, which originally dealt with police interrogation tactics, was amended Monday to ban public disclosure of that information addressed in the court decisions. The bill would also ban the mass release of salary data "including posting or publishing on the Internet."

Public employees who want to be private.