A pipeline carrying natural gas near San Jose. (Photo: Sundry Photography, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Climate change is one of the most important challenges of our time. And in California, we have felt the brunt of both the economic impacts of climate-driven disasters, as well as aggressive technology innovation that is trying to address it.
The CalPERS headquarters in Sacramento. (Photo: Kit Leong, via Shutterstock)Once CalPERS could shrug off low funding and rising employer costs as just another downturn, staying the course in the long-term strategy of getting most of its money from market investments that go up and down. This time is different.
Digitally tracking the performance of investment products in the bond market. (Illustration: Vintage Tone, via Shutterstock) OPINION: Thanks to Assembly Bill 33, introduced by State Assemblyman Rob Bonta, the California State Legislature will spend time and resources to codify an issue that California pensioners have spoken on before: divesting from high-performing funds for political purposes.AB 33, as written, would require that state retirement systems, namely California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), divest of all investments in private corrections companies and disallow investing in those same companies in the future.
The headquarters building of the Board of Equalization in Sacramento, 450 N Street. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)To the passer-by, the tower at 450 N Street is a downtown landmark, soaring assertively 24 stories into the Sacramento sky. But for more than a decade, the Board of Equalization’s (BoE) headquarters building has been a nightmare to an assortment of state bureaucrats. Glass panels fall out; water leaks; elevators stop between floors; there are potentially dangerous contaminants; plaster falls off walls; there are lawsuits.
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.
The CalPERS' governing board during a meeting several years ago at the pension fund's headquarters. (Photo: CalPERS board)CalPERS is considering small increases in employer and employee rates over decades to reduce the risk of big investment losses, a policy that also would lower an earnings forecast critics say is too optimistic. The proposal is a response to the “maturing” of a CalPERS system that soon will have more retirees than active workers. From two active workers for each retiree in 2002, the ratio fell to 1.45 to one by 2012 and is expected to be 0.8 to 0.6 to one in the next decades.
Calpensions: In a few years CalPERS retirees are expected to outnumber active workers, a national trend among public pension funds that makes them more vulnerable to big employer rate increases. The growing number of retirees, partly due to aging baby boomers, is one reason a staff report last week argues that CalPERS has too much “risk.”
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.