California Pension Reform

The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) this week will release a series of reports documenting the Golden State’s worsening public pension problems.  The reports are authored by Stanford Professor Joe Nation with the assistance of California Common Sense (CACS) researcher and Stanford junior Evan Storms.

Today SIEPR will release a statewide study covering the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), and the University of California Retirement Plan (UCRP).  A press conference call will be held this morning to discuss the statewide findings and information will be listed on the SIEPR website at siepr.stanford.edu.

Additionally, SIEPR and CACS are releasing a report on the financial well-being of 63 local public pension systems Wednesday, and on San Jose’s two public pension systems Thursday.

CACS will release a suite of interactive data visualizations that illustrate the findings of these reports under a range of assumptions on their website, www.cacs.org.

By Catherine Saillant | Los Angeles Times — It’s business as usual at Santa Ana City Hall as residents trickle up to the counter to pay business fees, pick up a dog license or, in a newer wing next door, apply for a free solar permit.

But on the top floor of the eight-story concrete fortress, city officials in Orange County’s most labor-friendly city are doing the once unthinkable: demanding big benefit concessions from their employee unions.

Getting a handle on pension costs in the county’s largest city is a must, officials here say. Santa Ana is facing a $30-million deficit, has only $300,000 in reserves and is jettisoning jobs by the dozens to keep its head above water. Last year, the city paid out about $11.3 million for employee pension costs.  Continue reading . . .

By Jon Ortiz | Sacramento Bee — A glitch with CalPERS’ new half-billion-dollar computer system has delayed death benefit checks to widowed spouses and incorrectly triggered letters notifying some members that their health insurance has been canceled.  Continue reading . . .

By Jim Christie | Reuters — There’s no avoiding a ballot showdown over paring public employee pensions in California’s third-largest city, its mayor said on Wednesday.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed told Reuters by telephone he has enough backing from city council members to put his plan for cutting about $100 million a year in pension expenses over two decades to city voters next March.

The council is expected to vote on December 6 on advancing the plan to the ballot. That will involve declaring a fiscal emergency for Silicon Valley’s biggest city, whose unionized employees have been tangling with Reed’s administration over its plans to rein in rising pension costs.  Continue reading . . .

By John Woolfolk | Mercury News — With life hanging in the balance, San Jose police and firefighters will take minutes longer to respond to emergencies. City libraries and community centers, some newly built, will sit locked and empty. There will be no more city recreation programs, and roads will continue to deteriorate.

That was the ugly picture of San Jose’s future that city leaders laid out Tuesday as they unveiled their case for declaring a “fiscal and service-level emergency” to justify rolling back the soaring costs for city workers’ pensions.

“We are in a fiscal crisis,” City Manager Debra Figone said. “Unless the city acts now to reduce these costs, the only choice will be to further reduce services to unacceptable levels. Further reductions of the magnitude necessary to pay retirement costs will cause the health, safety and well-being of our residents to be placed in critical and unacceptable risk.”  Continue reading . . .

By Crag Gustafson | San Diego Union-Tribune – An ex-San Diego police officer convicted of assaulting women isn’t eligible for a city pension contrary to a report Tuesday by The San Diego Union-Tribune, according to a lawyer with the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System.  Continue reading . . .

By Crag Gustafson | San Diego Union-Tribune — Anthony Arevalos, the former San Diego police officer convicted of a dozen charges last week after trying to seek sexual favors from women he stopped, is eligible to collect a nearly $40,000-a-year pension from the city when he turns 55. The San Diego Union-Tribune projected Arevalos’ future pension by applying his 17.4 years of service and final annual salary of $75,941 to the standard pension formula the city has negotiated for public-safety workers. If he lives until age 82, he’ll collect more than $1 million in taxpayer-funded payouts. Continue reading . . .

By Nels Johnson | Marin Independent Journal – The soaring cost of Marin County’s pension program is driven in large part by plump benefits for a few hundred retirees at the top, a new study indicates.

Some 30 percent of the Marin County Employee Retirement Association’s pension payroll goes to just 9 percent of retirees who get checks of more than $80,000 a year — including ranking officials, safety officers and others who retired at top pay after long tenures.  Continue reading . . .

By Nels Johnson | Marin Independent Journal – Soaring pension costs and flat property tax growth have wedged Marin County in a budget chasm that could reach $15 million in two years, requiring more cutbacks, collaboration, advance planning and creative thinking at the Civic Center.  Continue reading . . .

David Crane, the jobs and economic growth adviser for former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and now president of Govern for California, says that pension changes need to be part of solving the multibillion-dollar state budget deficit expected next year.  Continue reading . . .