This ex-deputy police chief was California's highest-paid public employee in 2025 - Los Angeles Times 26%
By https:47% www.latimes.com43% people40% ruben-vives0% Ruben Vives63%
7/11/2026, 11:00:00 AM
Keywords: The Latest
BS Summary: This article contains 1 faulty reasoning type, including Framing Effect, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 6.9% saturation with 70 hits. Analysis detected 70 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,008 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 38.6% and a BS Rank of 26% (10,750 of 14,406 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 74.60% of the article peer group.
July 11, 2026 4 AM PT
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State records show a former Redlands deputy police chief received about $1.26 million in total compensation in 2025, the highest of any public employee in California.
The bulk of the pay came from a settlement agreement related to a whistleblower claim the employee had filed against the city of Redlands.
A Los Angeles Fire Department battalion chief and L.A.
Department of Water and Power transmission and distribution supervisor ranked second and third on the compensation list, state data show.
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A former Redlands deputy police chief topped California’s public payroll in 2025, taking home $1.26 million in total compensation — more than the combined salaries of the mayors of Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, state compensation data show.
According to the s tate c ontroller’s o ffice , the former deputy chief received $1.2 million in total wages, including $890,467 in “other pay” tied to a legal claim against the city and $231,099 in accrued sick and vacation pay, in addition to $81,804 in regular salary.
The city of Redlands also contributed $55,864 toward the former employee’s retirement and health benefits, bringing the final compensation to about $1.26 million.
By comparison, the combined compensation of the mayors of Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego is about $1.2 million, including retirement and health benefits, according to the data .
A spokesperson for the Redlands Police Department could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
The news about the Redlands employee, first reported by the San Bernardino Sun , came to light last month following the state controller’s scheduled publication of city-level compensation data.
The controller’s office began tracking the salaries of public employees in 2010 amid the revelation that leaders in the working-class town of Bell in southeast Los Angeles County were receiving some of the largest salaries in the country.
Since then, the state agency has been collecting and publishing the compensation data of more than 2 million workers across more than 5,000 public agencies — including special districts, universities and state departments.
In publishing the data, the agency provides a snapshot of the highest-paid employees in the state, though it does not identify workers by name.
After the Redlands deputy police chief, the second-highest-paid employee in 2025 was a Los Angeles Fire Department battalion chief, followed by a transmission and distribution supervisor with the L.A.
Department of Water and Power, according to the data.
Although the state agency does not identify the employees, Transparent California, a nonprofit database of public employee pay, identified the Redlands worker as Travis Martinez.
Travis Martinez, seen in an undated photo.
(Redlands Police Department)
According to Redlands’ city records and the Redlands News, Martinez retired last April as part of an $871,956 settlement agreement related to a whistleblower claim against the city.
In an email response to The Times, Dennis Wagner, an attorney for Martinez, said the settlement payment made up the bulk of his client’s pay for 2025.
“It isn’t him working a bunch of overtime like others who may be doing so inappropriately,” Wagner wrote.
“The city wrongfully kept him on paid administrative leave under the guise of investigating him when he was a whistleblower and then decided to settle with him because the city had no basis for what they were doing to him.”
In his claim, Martinez alleged that city officials retaliated and discriminated against him for reporting misconduct, including sexual harassment, pay discrimination and an alleged attempt to conceal evidence of safety hazards linked to a fatal Metrolink train accident that killed a woman and her 11-year-old daughter in April 2023.
According to the claim, Martinez discovered the safety issue after learning that nearby private security cameras had captured the fatal accident.
He brought his findings to the attention of city officials, but was told not to discuss it with anyone, including authorities.
“It was implied the city did not want to correct this dangerous condition in order to protect itself from the litigation by not exposing the dangerous condition or bringing it to light,” the claim read.
“The claimant was instructed not to provide certain evidence to authorities.”
Eight months after the crash, Metrolink had adjusted the warning lights at the rail crossing after learning that the system was not working properly, according to Redland News.
Martinez alleged that city officials excluded him as a candidate for police chief because he had spoken out against misconduct in the city including the mishandling of a sexual harassment scandal involving another officer.
“There is a history within this department of a pattern of retaliation against officers that make whistleblower complaints and report illegal activities,” the claim read.
“Claimant has been subjected to this in the past, but it has only become worse since Claimant spoke up on behalf of officers and other employees who were being systematically discriminated, harassed and retaliated against.”
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Ruben Vives is a general assignment reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
A native of Guatemala, he got his start in journalism by writing for The Times’ Homicide Report in 2007.
He helped uncover the financial corruption in the city of Bell that led to criminal charges against eight city officials.
The 2010 investigative series won the Pulitzer Prize for public service and other prestigious awards.
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