CFFR’s president Marcia Fritz will be speaking this Sunday at the 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy, a five-day international event that includes a two-day U.S. Conference on Initiative and Referendum. The event will be held in San Francisco at the UC Hastings College of Law.
Fritz will be participating in a panel titled “Smart Detour or Dead End: Does Initiative & Referendum Provide a Path to Advance Your Agenda?” moderated by Paul Elias of the Associated Press. Other panelists will be: Eric Ehst, Arizona Clean Elections Institute; Rob Kampia, Marijuana Policy Project; Steven Hill, on Instant Runoff Voting; Tim Mooney, Silver Bullet Inc and Save Our Secret Ballot,Nevada; Tim Eyman, Voters Want More Choices, Washington; and Jung-OK Lee, Korea Democracy Foundation.
To get more information on the conference, click here. To see the complete schedule and get information on registration, click here.
On Friday, CFFR’s vice president Jack Dean will be in Washington, DC participating in a conference on public pensions sponsored by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation titled “What Public Benefit Plans Can Learn from Private Employers.”
Dean will serve as moderator of a panel titled “Will States Need a Bailout?” Participating on the panel will be: Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute; Keith Brainard, research director of the National Association of State Retirement Administrators; and State Senator Chris Lauzen of Illinois.
You can find more details, including registration information, here.
The entire morning event will be webcast live here, and will be archived online in the near future.
CFFR’s president Marcia Fritz will be testifying this morning at a hearing on public employee pensions being held by California’s Little Hoover Commission. The meeting begins at 9:00 in Room 437 of the State Capitol in Sacramento. The commission will hear from the following:
Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at The New School for Social Research in New York City
Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility
David Low, director of Governmental Relations for the California School Employees Association
Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators
A 30-second video explaining the need to reform San Francisco’s city employee pension system has been unveiled by SF Smart Reform:
Signatures are needed by July 1 to qualify the “Sustainable City Employees Benefits Reform Act” for the November ballot. More information is available in this San Francisco Examiner editorial or at the organization’s website where you can also download a petition.
Interestingly, the report starts with Sacramento Fire Captain Christian Pebbles repeating that old tired mantra about firefighters deserving better pensions because they die young. See this column by Steven Greenhut that refutes this myth about public safety employees using data supplied by CalPERS.
Also note the amazing comment near the end by Willie Brown (former mayor of San Francisco and former speaker of the California Assembly) that pensions won’t bankrupt the state — the state will just cease paying them.
CFFR’s request for pension records from the Orange County Employees Retirement System (OCERS) is finally going to have its day in court. Read about it here in this story by Orange County Register reporter Tony Savaadra
Special thanks to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association for assisting CFFR with outstanding representation by its Director of Legal Affairs, Tim Bittle.
David Crane, special advisor to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for jobs and economic growth, was interviewed Monday on the Fox Business Network regarding how California is dealing with its public pension problems:
Yesterday CFFR’s vice president Jack Dean was a guest on Martha Montelongo’s radio show on CRN Digital Talk Radio. You can play or download the show here.
CFFR’s president Marcia Fritz was a guest yesterday afternoon on the John and Ken Show on KFI Radio in Los Angeles. You can listen online – it’s the first 15-minute segment.
The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility is suspending for now its efforts to obtain signatures to qualify its New Employees Benefits Reform Initiative for the November 2010 ballot, according to Marcia Fritz, CFFR’s president. The initiative, if passed by voters, would have saved the state and local agencies $14 billion in the first six years and over $500 billion within 30 years. CFFR will continue to advocate for statewide pension reform and encourage the Legislature to reduce defined benefits to a sustainable level for new workers and to ensure that pension promises for current workers and retirees can be kept.
Polls show an increasing majority of voters prefer a 401(k) plan for public workers instead of a defined benefit plan. Financial backers tell us the same thing,” says Fritz. “If legislators do nothing to reduce pension costs next year, we will try again to qualify a pension reform initiative — except one that provides for a defined contribution plan, not a defined benefit plan.”
CFFR is also very troubled at two events that came to its attention last month, says Fritz.
- After the Board of Retirement of the Contra Costa Employee Retirement Association was told by its legal counsel that its benefit calculations are illegal, it did nothing to cease making the payments. The majority of the Retirement Board’s members have conflicts of interest in benefit calculation decisions. CFFR’s current reform initiative does nothing to reform retirement board compositions to minimize conflicts of interest and ensure the discharge of their fiduciary duties with fairness and integrity.
- In 2002, San Francisco voters approved a Charter Amendment that allowed the City to provide new, extraordinary pension benefits to public safety workers. Ballot language stated “no cash would be required since the City’s Retirement System currently has a large surplus and that if the employer is required to make contributions “theCity will negotiate a cost-sharing agreement with the police officers and firefighters to cover all or part of the cost of providing the additional retirement benefits through employee contribution.” Soon after its passage, pension costs skyrocketed and a very small fraction of the increase is being borne by safety workers. CFFR’s current reform initiative requires voter approval future benefit increases, but does nothing to ensure that ballot language is transparent and free from deception.
CFFR will continue to encourage local efforts to rein in pension costs, says Fritz. Citizen organizations in several cities are attempting to qualify ballot measures, and several city manager groups are meeting to reach consensus on regionally uniform lower benefits for future labor contract negotiations. CalPERS has conducted public forums to express its support to agencies to handle the state-wide pension crisis locally.
San Diego’s NBC affiliate KNSD-TV (Channels 7/39) produces a regular feature called “San Diego Explained.” This segment does a good job of explaining the difference between the guaranteed defined-benefit pension plans enjoyed by public employees and the 401(k) plans that most taxpayers are familiar with. Watch for an especially on-target comment by city council member Carl DeMaio.
CFFR president Marcia Fritz will be a guest this evening on KOGO Radio (600 AM) in San Diego at 7:05pm. The show’s host is Chris Reed, editorial writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune. You can listen to the show live online.
Even though the MWD had announced on Monday afternoon that the proposed pension boost was going to be withdrawn from Tuesday’s board meeting agenda, CFFR president Marcia Fritz attended the meeting anyway and spoke during the public comments portion. You can watch her speak here (her comments begin at 5:50 into the video and last for about three minutes).
Yesterday afternoon, MWD General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger withdrew the tentative labor agreements from today’s board meeting agenda following a closed session of the board’s Organization and Personnel Committee. You can read Kightlinger’s memorandum explaining the decision to the district’s workforce in a press release here. And you can access the many news stories and editorials detailing this interesting turn of events today on PensionTsunami.com.
One of San Diego’s most vigorous advocates of public employee pension reform, accountant April Boling, has joined the board of directors of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility (CFFR). The non-profit group is promoting a state ballot proposition to reform pension practices in the state.
Boling is the former chair of the City of San Diego Pension Reform Committee. She has also served as chair of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, chair of the San Diego Convention Center Corporation and served on San Diego’s Blue Ribbon Committee on City Finance and the City of San Diego Citizens’ Budget Committee.
“Public employee pension costs have many cities teetering on the edge of bankruptcy., Boling said. “Systematic reform with the weight of state law is the only way we can give taxpayers the protection they need.”
Ms. Boling is a certified public accountant and owner of a private accounting practice specializing in taxation of closely held businesses and multi-state taxation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of San Diego.
