About this site

Public records, made public.

Transparent Salinas takes campaign-finance filings already on file with the City of Salinas and puts them in a visual, searchable format. It makes no endorsements; source facts, calculations, classifications, and inferences are labeled under the standards below.

tips@transparentsalinas.org @TransparentSalinas Original NetFile records ↗
By the numbers
$1.36M Tracked 2024–2025 cycle
722 Transactions FPPC Form 460
26 Editorial groups Project classifications
13 Committees Council, PAC, referendum

Where to start

Six ways into the project’s records and reporting. Pick the one that matches your question.

01 · Quick read

Cheat Sheet

The race at a glance — who’s running, who’s funded, what’s on the ballot.

 02 · The money

Money Trail

Top donors, biggest checks, and which candidates pulled them in.

 03 · The donors

Donor Directory

Search every contributor by name, employer, or amount given.

 04 · Research groups

Editorial Donor Groupings

Filing records grouped as research leads, with evidence and identity limits disclosed.

 05 · The spend

Expenditures

Where campaigns spent their cash — consultants, mailers, signs.

 06 · The measures

Referendum

Ballot measures and the committees that funded each side.

What this is

An independent, volunteer civic-data project that republishes City of Salinas campaign-finance records in a more visual, searchable format. Maintainer identities are not published for privacy and safety. There is no parent organization, outside funding, or political affiliation.

What it isn’t

Not affiliated with the City of Salinas, the FPPC, or any candidate or committee. Transparent Salinas makes no endorsements. Source facts, our calculations, and interpretive groupings or inferences are identified separately so readers can evaluate each one.

The Data

Source

City of Salinas NetFile Public Portal, the official electronic filing system candidates and committees use to submit FPPC campaign finance disclosure forms.

What’s included

  • FPPC Form 460, Schedule A — monetary contributions received
  • FPPC Form 460, Schedule E — campaign expenditures
  • 2024 & 2025 calendar-year filings
  • “Export Amended” data, deduplicated to the most recent version of each transaction
  • Council candidates, PACs, and ballot-measure committees
  • $1,387,864 in expenditures across 1,132 Schedule E transactions from 8 committee datasets

Known gaps

  • Non-monetary (in-kind) contributions. In-kind goods and services live on Schedule C, which isn’t pulled into this site yet. The exclusion is methodological, not editorial.
  • 2026 filings. The current snapshot contains no 2026 calendar-year filing rows. The portal may change between snapshots; 2026 records will appear here only after a manual download, import, and review. 2026 campaign statements (data as of 2026-09-19) are published separately in 2026 Money.
  • Tony Barrera 2024–2025 contributions. His most recent filing on NetFile is from 2022. If he files for the 2026 race, those records will appear here.

Methodology

Selected NetFile Excel exports are converted to JSON and rendered client-side. The project preserves source amounts and filing-name fields in the imported records, while display formatting and normalized search keys may differ. Within the included export and schedules, the project selects the latest available amended version it can match; later filings or unmatched amendments may not appear until a future manual review.

The cross-campaign donor directory groups records by exact normalized filing name, entity type, and city. These are filing-name groups, not verified unique people or organizations. Spelling or location differences can split one donor; identical filing details can group different parties. Group records therefore carry an unverified identity status and state their matching basis.

Candidate portraits use project-generated initials unless reuse rights for a photograph have been documented. Unverified photographs are withheld from the public release.

Data through . This is the data snapshot date; filing periods are identified separately on the relevant page.

From filing to page

Campaign-finance transaction fields and totals in the Schedule A and E views are derived from the included public FPPC filing exports. Other pages also contain election, budget, questionnaire, and editorial material with separately named sources.

  1. Step 01

    NetFile

    Candidates and committees file FPPC Form 460 with the City of Salinas through the NetFile public portal.

  2. Step 02

    Export

    Editors manually download Excel “Export Amended” workbooks from the public portal. The export can include amended records; it is not treated as proof that the project captured every filing or amendment.

  3. Step 03

    Dedupe

    Within the imported schedules, matched amended versions are collapsed to the latest available row. Source amounts and names are retained, while the interface separately creates formatting, search keys, calculations, and classifications.

  4. Step 04

    Publish

    Imported records are converted to JSON and rendered in the browser. This is a project-created transformation of a dated snapshot, not a live mirror or substitute for the original filing.

Editorial standards

What the words mean

Campaign finance has its own vocabulary. Here are the terms you’ll meet across this site, in plain language.

Common questions

How often is the data refreshed?

This is a manually refreshed snapshot, not a live feed. Editors plan new downloads around major filing deadlines, then import and review the records before publication. The footer’s “data through” date changes only after that process; NetFile may contain newer filings in the meantime.

Why aren’t in-kind contributions included?

FPPC Form 460 Schedule A covers monetary contributions; in-kind goods and services live on Schedule C, which isn’t pulled into this site yet. The exclusion is methodological, not editorial — in-kinds may be added in a future pass.

How do I report an error or correction?

Email tips@transparentsalinas.org. Include the page, the number you believe is wrong, and the NetFile filing that supports the correction if possible. Fixes are made in public.

Are PACs and candidate committees treated the same way?

Both are pulled from the same NetFile portal but surface in different views: candidate committees on the council and elections pages, PACs on the dedicated PACs page, and ballot-measure committees on the Referendum page.

Why does Tony Barrera show no 2024–2025 contributions?

His most recent FPPC filing found in the project’s reviewed NetFile materials is from 2022. If newer in-scope records are available, they can appear after the next manual download, import, and review.

Is this site affiliated with the City of Salinas?

No. Transparent Salinas is an independently maintained volunteer project, not affiliated with the City of Salinas, the FPPC, any candidate, or any committee. It has no parent organization, outside funding, or political affiliation; maintainer identities remain private for safety.

Who’s behind this

Transparent Salinas is an independently maintained volunteer project built on the belief that campaign-finance data should not require a public-records request and a spreadsheet to understand. Maintainer identities are not published for privacy and safety.

Public records, made public — but actually usable.

The project has no parent organization, outside funding, or political affiliation. The data was always public; this site makes it easier to read. Tips, source documents, correction requests, and right-of-reply messages are accepted at tips@transparentsalinas.org. Candidates the project contacts in the same covered race receive the same questions; contact may occur on different dates, and each profile’s invitation status reflects the project’s outreach log. Responses retain their substance, apart from clearly marked formatting or safety redactions. Unless a response was submitted in Spanish, text on the Spanish pages is a Transparent Salinas translation; the original-language response controls if wording differs.

Editorial and corrections standards

Source facts

Names, amounts, dates, committee information, and transaction details reproduced from a public filing are source facts. The filing source and reporting period are named wherever the available records support them.

Calculations

Totals, averages, distinct filing-name counts, percentages, and rankings are calculated from the published records. They can differ from a committee summary when filing periods, amendments, refunds, or included schedules differ.

Classifications and inferences

Industry labels and editorial donor-record groupings are research aids, not official filing fields. Industry labels use project-maintained name and employer matching rules and can be incomplete or wrong. Record groups use filing-name variants, employer or occupation fields, responsible-officer text, and documented public corporate relationships where available. None of these classifications verifies identity, ownership, family relationship, coordination, common control, or wrongdoing.

Corrections and replies

Email tips@transparentsalinas.org with the page, disputed statement, and supporting record. Documented errors are corrected after review; substantive changes receive a dated correction note. People or organizations named in coverage may use the same inbox to provide documentation or a response.

Corrections and change log

· Audit release

  • Clarified anonymous organizational operation, editorial independence, right of reply, and the difference between source facts, calculations, classifications, and inferences.
  • Replaced unverified “unique donor” claims in the cross-campaign directory with filing-name-group methodology and disclosed its identity-matching limits.
  • Updated the CA-19 primary note to distinguish the state’s certification deadline from the still-unofficial label on the official results portal when checked.
  • Added candidate source notes, direct FEC records, static finance facts, a privacy notice, keyboard support, status announcements, and narrow-screen fixes identified in the accessibility audit.

To request a correction, send the page URL, disputed statement, and supporting record to tips@transparentsalinas.org. Substantive corrections will be added here with the date and a plain-language explanation.

Disclaimer. This site is not affiliated with the City of Salinas, the FPPC, or any candidate or committee. All data is public record. If you believe any data is inaccurate, please verify against the original filings at the NetFile portal and email tips@transparentsalinas.org.