Posts Tagged: fund

Survey: Brown, Legislature on a roll

State Capitol, Sacramento. (Photo: David Monniaux)

by PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE OF CALIFORNIA posted 01.30.2014

Californians give Governor Jerry Brown a record-high job approval rating and his budget proposal strong bipartisan support, according to a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), with funding from The James Irvine Foundation. The state legislature’s approval rating is a near-record 42 percent among adults and is at 33 percent among likely voters. Both ratings are similar to December. Asked to rate the job performance of their own state legislators, 48 percent of adults and 45 percent of likely voters approve. (Photo: David Monniaux)

To cover the cost of retirees living longer, the CalPERS board next month is expected to approve the third rate hike in the last two years, phasing in the increase to soften the blow on state and local governments. The new rate hike would not begin until fiscal 2016-17 to allow employers time to plan after receiving rate projections next year.

The rapidly growing cost of state worker retiree health care, a more generous benefit than received by active state workers, soon could be taking a bigger bite out of the state general fund than pensions. As if trading places, a new forecast expects the annual general fund payment for state worker retiree health care, now $500 million less than the payment for pensions, to be $500 million more than the pension payment in six years.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office yesterday recommended that the Legislature adopt a plan to fully fund CalSTRS in 30 years — an estimated cost of $4.5 billion a year, a hefty addition to current annual contributions totaling $5.7 billion.

That’s not likely to happen as the state, with a budget back in the black

More money for the underfunded California State Teachers Retirement System may be considered by the Legislature next year, thanks to new attention from lawmakers and a state budget deficit narrowed by a voter-approved tax increase this month.

After years of ignoring pleas for a rate hike, the Legislature approved a resolution last August, SCR

The CalPERS board may make it more costly for struggling local governments to close their pension plans.

A pending change is driven in part by unusually low interest rates and the fear of an unlikely, but now not inconceivable, collapse of a large employer like the bankrupt city of San Bernardino.

The cost