A bill that started out as Gov. Brown’s proposal to restructure the CalPERS board emerged from the Legislature last week as a more modest change: a requirement that CalPERS board members receive 24 hours of education in pension fund operations.
Bankrupt San Bernardino announced an agreement with CalPERS last week to pay off an unprecedented pension debt owed for skipping payments to the pension fund for a year — $13.5 million, plus several million more in penalties and interest. Details of the agreement reached in closed mediation were not released. But the city said in a court filing the CalPERS agreement “will help form the basis” for a debt-cutting plan needed to exit bankruptcy.
Payments seven judges make toward their pensions would be cut nearly in half by a bill approved last week in a Senate committee, despite a warning from the chairwoman of a “slippery slope” undermining the governor’s pension reform.
Calpensions: In a new step to expose hidden debt, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board last week proposed that retiree health care debt or “unfunded liability” be reported on the face of government financial statements, not buried inside.
Calpensions.com: The bill said to represent three years of talks mainly between the IRS and the Orange County system, the informal leader in the negotiations, moved out of the Assembly public employees retirement committee with no discussion.
An $8 million pension bond was approved last week by voters in Piedmont, a small well-to-do city completely surrounded by deep-in-debt Oakland, originator of the pension bond that has figured in the Stockton, San Bernardino and Detroit bankruptcies. (Photo: City of Fremont
The reason, Reed says, is that the Attorney General used the word “eliminate” in describing his proposal to end the vested benefit rights of public employees. “This is the only recourse we have to correct something that is inaccurate and misleading,” said Reed of the Attorney General’s description of his measure. But Reed has a problem: He and his allies used the same word he’s criticizing the Attorney General for using – “eliminate” – when detailing his ballot measure.
OPINION: Nearly a year has passed since the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) asked you and the Legislature to address a pension deficit for which it seeks a 30-year $240 billion cash injection, starting with $4.5 billion per year.
A major public pension reform initiative got a mixed cost analysis last week from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. The measure would give state and local governments the option of cutting retirement benefits current workers earn in the future, while preserving benefits already earned through past service.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein, ruling disclosure was adequate, gave Stockton permission to circulate the debt-cutting “plan of adjustment” to all creditors for a vote on Feb. 10. An objection from one creditor can force a trial.