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Talks loom on statewide pension reform

Instead of eventually eliminating pensions like the Ventura County plan, the statewide initiative Reed dropped last January, complaining of a misleading ballot summary, is intended to strengthen pension funding and could even increase-short term costs.

In addition to the pension choice, a little-publicized provision in the Reed initiative would require governments to propose, but not enact, annual plans for fully funding pensions and retiree health care in an unusually short 15 years.

Grau said the Ventura group had not yet talked to Reed, who has said he will continue pushing his initiative for 2016. DeMaio is interested in a statewide pension initiative, Grau said, but he is running for Congress and may not want to meet until after the November election.

Reformers think a cost-cutting pension reform Gov. Brown pushed through the Legislature two years ago falls short of what is needed. New hires get lower pensions and, among other things, some employees will pay a little more for their pensions.

The Legislature rejected one of the governor’s key proposals: a “hybrid” plan for new hires that combines a smaller pension with a 401(k)-style individual investment plan, similar to the retirement plan adopted for federal employees in 1986.

Could local pension reformers find common ground on some version of a hybrid plan? An incentive for the local reformers would be the possible support of a re-elected Brown, who has a big lead in the polls, if he were to renew his interest in pension reform.

If voters had approved the Ventura County initiative, some expected a domino-like spread of similar ballot measures to the 19 other counties with retirement systems operating under a 1937 act.

But Ventura Superior Court Judge Kent Kellegrew ruled there is nothing in the 1937 act that allows “an individual county to ‘opt out’ or terminate its participation” through a countywide initiative or a vote of the county supervisors.

The judge agreed with a union lawsuit backed by a legal opinion from the Ventura County counsel, endorsed by a 4-to-1 vote of county supervisors, Foy opposing. The change apparently can be made only by the Legislature or a statewide ballot measure.

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