California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Monday that requires city officials to disclose their compensation for attending simultaneous or back-to-back meetings. The new law forces a clerk or member of the local legislative body to verbally announce the amount paid to the members.
The new law is related to abuses discovered during the Bell scandal.
Bell’s City Council members made more than $100,000 a year by receiving stipends for serving on various boards and commissions that sometimes met during council meeting, or just for minutes, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The city, in Los Angeles County, was thrust into the spotlight last summer by press reports it was paying its city manager about $800,000 a year.
The fallout since then has included civil and criminal charges against the former city manager, four City Council members, and other members of Bell’s management team. They are accused of misappropriating millions of dollars from the city, which has a population of about 40,000.
Since the fallout, Bell has been struggling to align its finances.
