A wildfire burns near a home in Salinas, Monterey County, last year. (Photo: David A Litman)With 2020’s disasters in mind, the state is making elaborate plans to deal with an upcoming wildfire season made potentially more deadly by drought. The challenge is there, and it’s a big one.
Gov. Jerry Brown at a Capitol briefing last year on his revised state budget. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/APOPINION: Californians can breathe a sigh of relief. When proponents of a 2016 ballot proposal to extend Proposition 30’s tax rates on wealthy Californians amended their measure this week, they did something that was both politically smart and fiscally sound: They eliminated a provision the governor a few days ago called the measure’s “fatal flaw”, that would have exempted this proposed new revenue from the state’s Rainy Day Fund.
The CalPERS' governing board during a meeting several years ago at the pension fund's headquarters. (Photo: CalPERS board)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.
CalPERS headquarters, Sacramento. (Photo: Wikipedia)Calpensions: Three years ago CalPERS investment earnings hit bottom in a Wilshire consultants report that ranks the performance of big pension funds — dead last among its peers over the previous five years. Last week a new Wilshire report showed CalPERS investment earnings steadily climbing up the ranks, finishing in the top quarter of big pension funds during the last three years.