Research · Public sector
Every public administrator across all 58 California counties
A verified contact record for the Public Administrator, Public Guardian and Public Conservator in every California county — compiled by hand from 58 separate county websites.
The problem
The client needed to reach the Public Administrator, Public Guardian and Public Conservator in every one of California's 58 counties. There is no central directory. Each county publishes its own structure, its own job titles, and in several cases combines all three roles under one office while others split them across separate departments.
Three constraints made this harder than a normal research job:
- Role ambiguity. The same responsibility carries different titles county to county — Public Administrator, Public Guardian-Conservator, Estate Administrator, or a division inside the Sheriff's or Treasurer's office.
- Scattered sources. Some counties publish a full staff directory. Others list only a switchboard number and a contact form.
- Privacy barriers. Public-sector staff directories are frequently gated or deliberately generic, so the named individual is not always published.
What we did
- Department mapping
Before collecting anything, we mapped which department holds the function in each county. That decided where to look, and it is the step that prevents 58 inconsistent searches.
- Targeted deep search
County site search, advanced search operators against each county domain, published board agendas and budget documents — which routinely name the office holder even when the staff directory does not.
- Structured capture
One row per county with a fixed schema: county, office name, role title as published, contact name, direct line where available, published email, and the source URL for every field.
- Validation and QA
Every email checked through ZeroBounce. Every record traceable to the page it came from, so the client could audit any row.
The result
A complete, verified list covering all 58 counties, delivered in full on the first attempt with zero revisions requested. The client estimated the work saved their team more than 100 hours of manual searching.
The detail that mattered was the source URL column. Public-sector data goes stale when staff move, and a list without provenance cannot be maintained. With the source recorded, the client can re-check any row in under a minute.
Last reviewed 28 July 2026. Figures are taken from the delivered project record. Client names are withheld where no permission to name has been given.
Questions
About this project
How do you research public-sector contacts without breaching privacy?
We only collect information that the organisation itself has published, and we record the source URL for every field. Nothing is scraped from gated systems, purchased from third-party brokers, or inferred. If a county does not publish a named contact, the row says so rather than guessing.
What happens when a role does not exist under that title?
We map the function rather than the job title. If a county assigns Public Administrator duties to the Treasurer's office, we record it there and note the actual published title, so the client understands what they are looking at.
Can you do this for other US states?
Yes. The method is the same for any jurisdiction where the data is public but fragmented across many small websites. Volume and delivery time depend on how many separate sources need visiting.
How current is a list like this?
Public-sector staff turnover means expect a decay rate around 20-25% a year. Because every row carries its source URL, refreshing the list is far cheaper than rebuilding it.
Have a similar problem?
Send a sample of your data. We will tell you what is wrong with it, what it would take to fix, and what it costs — before you pay anything.