Is Redlands Deputy Chief’s $1.2M Payout Finally Exposed?

State payroll records show a former Redlands deputy chief out-earned every other city employee in California in 2025 without working a single day. As the settlement details come into focus, taxpayers are left asking who actually holds the department accountable.

He never worked a single day in 2025. He still walked away California’s highest-paid city employee.
State Controller’s Office data released June 30 shows a former deputy chief for the Redlands Police Department was the highest paid city employee in California in 2025, yet never worked a day that year and retired four months into it. The figure landed just as Redlands faces renewed scrutiny over a police department already tied to more than $3.3 million in harassment-related settlements, making the payout impossible for taxpayers to ignore. The Press Democrat

How Did One Deputy Chief Earn $1.2 Million Without Working?

The math is where this story starts. Martinez received $81,804 in regular salary, $890,467 in “other pay,” and $231,099 in lump-sum compensation, and the city contributed an additional $55,864 toward his retirement and health benefits, bringing his total compensation package to roughly $1.26 million.
For comparison, the two deputy chiefs who actually worked full years in Redlands earned a combined fraction of that. Deputy Chiefs Stephen Crane and Jeremy Floyd earned $304,000 and $270,000, respectively. Martinez’s total also outpaced a Los Angeles Fire Department battalion chief, who earned $921,050, and a district supervisor for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who earned $779,192.
No city employee in California earned more in 2025 than a deputy chief who didn’t work a single day. The Press Democrat + 2

$1.2 million. The question Redlands taxpayers deserve answered: what, exactly, did they pay for?
None of it came from routine overtime or a merit raise. It came from a legal settlement — and settlements involving public employees rarely get the scrutiny an annual budget line does.

What Triggered an 18-Month Paid Leave and a $872,000 Settlement?

Martinez had been the department’s second-highest-ranking officer before he was placed on paid leave in October 2023 and never returned to work again. The leave followed a claim he filed against the city in June 2023, alleging retaliation for reporting internal misconduct.
The City Council voted 3-2 in closed session on April 15, 2025 to approve a settlement agreement with Martinez, and under the deal he agreed to retire within 10 days and receive $871,956, in addition to his accrued leave.
Martinez’s attorney framed the outcome as a loss for the department, telling local outlet Community Forward Redlands the city had paid nearly $1 million to remove “a conscientious and competent deputy chief” who had exposed serious problems. City officials, notably, have not publicly disputed that the payout occurred — only that they will not confirm the compensation was his. The Press Democrat + 4

Is a Whistleblower Payout the Same Thing as a Reward?

That’s the uncomfortable question this case forces. Martinez says the money was compensation for retaliation he suffered after doing the right thing. Critics say that regardless of motive, taxpayers are still footing a seven-figure bill with no work performed in return. Both things can be true at once — and that tension is exactly why this story generated statewide attention.

Why Did Martinez Say He Went to the FBI?

Martinez’s underlying claim reads less like a pay dispute and more like a department in crisis. He alleged he was retaliated against after reporting allegations of sexual misconduct involving then-Deputy Chief Mike Reiss to the FBI, believing the matter wasn’t being adequately addressed internally, and accused city leaders of pressuring him to overlook misconduct and remain silent. He separately claimed he raised concerns about attempts to conceal evidence tied to a fatal Metrolink train crash that killed a Redlands woman and her 11-year-old daughter.
Reiss retired in March 2023 amid allegations he preyed upon, groomed and sexually harassed several department employees over several years. Then-Police Chief Chris Catren retired two days earlier, citing a work-related back injury, and has denied his retirement was connected to the scandal.
If a whistleblower has to be paid nearly $1 million just to walk away quietly, whose interests is the settlement actually protecting?
The city’s broader financial exposure only reinforces the point. Redlands has paid out more than $3.3 million in settlements tied to Reiss-related lawsuits over the past three years, including a $475,000 settlement approved in June with former forensic specialist Geneva Holzer, who agreed to resign and dismiss her lawsuit as part of the deal. The Press Democrat + 4

When one retirement costs taxpayers more than most residents will earn in a decade, is anyone still asking whether that’s actually accountability?

What Do the Numbers Tell Us About Payroll Transparency in California?

The Controller’s Office publishes compensation data annually based on submissions from more than 5,000 public agencies, but it does not identify employees by name. It took an independent nonprofit, Transparent California, to cross-reference the anonymized records and identify Martinez as the top earner.
That’s not a transparency system working — that’s a transparency system that needed outside help to do its job.
This is the deeper story here. A settlement negotiated behind closed doors, a payroll database that hides identities by default, and a watchdog group doing the connecting work the state itself declines to do. For a state that requires exhaustive disclosure on far smaller matters, the anonymization of its highest earners deserves its own hard look. The Press DemocratThe Press Democrat

Key Questions This Story Raises

• Why does California’s public payroll database anonymize the very compensation figures taxpayers are entitled to see?
• Should six-figure and seven-figure settlement payouts to public employees require a public vote, rather than a closed-session decision?
• If whistleblower claims routinely end in confidential settlements instead of public findings, how would anyone know whether misconduct was actually addressed?

What Do Supporters of the Settlement Actually Believe?

Defenders of the arrangement make a fair point worth engaging honestly. Litigation is expensive and unpredictable, and cities regularly calculate that a settlement costs less than the legal fees and reputational damage of a trial — especially when a claim involves allegations as serious as concealed evidence or a misconduct cover-up. From that view, $872,000 wasn’t a reward; it was risk management, and Martinez’s 29-year career factored into the number.
That argument holds up right up until it meets the taxpayer’s ledger. Risk management still spent public money, still happened without a public vote on the merits, and still left the underlying allegations against Reiss and the department’s handling of them essentially unresolved in the public record. Settling a claim is not the same as answering it. Yahoo!

Has Redlands Actually Solved Anything?

That’s the question city leaders have yet to answer clearly. Two deputy chiefs are gone under a cloud of allegations. Over $3.3 million has been paid out in related settlements. And the highest-earning city employee in California in 2025 spent the year on leave, not on duty.
Redlands residents are left funding the fallout of a scandal without a public accounting of what actually happened inside their police department. That’s not a partisan complaint — it’s a basic taxpayer question, and it deserves a straight answer.
The real question isn’t whether Travis Martinez deserved his settlement. It’s whether California’s public payroll system will ever let taxpayers see the full picture before the check is already cashed.
Still have questions about how your local government spends public money? Stay informed — subscribe for daily accountability coverage. Think your neighbors need to see this? Share the article. Want your voice to count? Attend the next Redlands City Council meeting or review your city’s compensation data through the State Controller’s public pay database.