Posts Tagged: board
News
Calpensions: A board working on a proposal to enroll most small business employees in a state-run retirement savings plan, unless they opt out, was told last week that small technology-focused financial firms could do the job. The founders of three firms that offer 401(k)s and other retirement plans to small businesses did not object to competition from the state.
Opinion
We are cutting per-capita carbon pollution dramatically while growing our state’s economy. Now, for every dollar of goods and services we produce, we emit less carbon pollution than any other major economy except for nuclear-powered France. Contrary to fear-mongering by some politicians, California has cut emissions by 25 percent while growing our economy by 37 percent over two decades.
Opinion
OPINION: The oil company partisans and their legislative allies apparently failed to read past the first five pages of the bill. Buried in the back pages of SB 350 is a full codification of the 2030 and 2050 climate targets that the industry thought it defeated, along with a powerful new set of directives to state energy agencies to meet those targets.
News
A Moraga-Orinda fire chief drew national attention six years ago for retiring at age 50 with a pension much larger than his base pay. He went back to work as chief the following Monday, hired as a consultant with full salary. “People point to me as a poster child for pension spiking, but I did not negotiate these rules,” Peter Nowicki said.
News
Calpensions: After the board was told last April that CalPERS could not track the incentive payments, known as “carried interest,” a wave of media criticism grew with stories in the New York Times late last month and Fortune magazine last week. A pension fraud investigator, Edward Siedle of Benchmark Financial Services, launched an Internet fund-raising campaign on Kickstarter to raise $750,000 for a “forensic investigation” of the California Public Employees Retirement System.
News
California’s greenhouse gases declined even as the state’s economy expanded, according to state and federal agencies tracking the numbers. State air-quality regulators reported that carbon emissions fell by 1.5 million metric tons in 2013, while the economy experienced 2 percent growth, greater than the national average.
News
Calpensions: An accounting board best known for requiring the calculation and reporting of the debt owed for retiree health care promised government workers, which often turned out to be shockingly large, is having another moment. This month the Governmental Accounting Standards Board applied new rules for reporting pension debt to retiree heath care.
News
No matter what you might have heard, Felicia Marcus wants you to know she doesn’t hate your lawn. At least not on general principle. “No, no, no,” Marcus, the chair of the Water Resources Control Board, says emphatically when asked about a quote from California Farm Bureau Federation president Paul Wenger that claimed Marcus has a personal vendetta against green lawns.
Opinion
California is in the midst of multiple regulatory efforts to reduce methane emissions from natural gas and oil operations throughout the state. It’s a key opportunity to make a real dent in the state’s climate impact since methane, the primary component of natural gas, packs over 84 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it is released unburned.
News
ANALYSIS: Now that we’re in the middle of March Madness and nearing the opening of the 2015 Major League baseball season, we see the sports data geeks take center stage. Ever since the book, and subsequent movie, “Moneyball,” fans have been intrigued by the data that appears to be a major driver in sporting decisions, from the players chosen for a team, to the offensive and defensive formations, where and when the percentages suggest shooting or passing, and so on.
A retiree checks out the newspaper in his back yard. (Photo: Budimir Jevtic, Shutterstock)
