A view across the rail years of downtown San Diego. (Photo: Welcomia, via Shutterstock)Calpensions: In another ruling allowing pension cuts, an appeals court last week overturned a state labor board ruling that a voter-approved San Diego pension reform was invalid because the city declined to bargain the issue with labor unions.
The CalPERS' governing board during a meeting several years ago at the pension fund's headquarters. (Photo: CalPERS board)A tentative CalPERS proposal would limit the board president and committee chairs to four consecutive one-year terms, a policy that could end the long-running presidency of Rob Feckner in 2017. He has presided over times good and bad at the nation’s largest state public pension 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.
Merced County pensions may have the lowest funding level of any public pension system in California, a shortfall officials attribute to a big retroactive pension increase for all county employees a decade ago and faulty actuarial work. In the latest annual public pension report from the state controller’s office, Merced County stands out with the lowest level of funding in the last reported year, 54.7 percent in 2010-11.
Backers of an initiative that would give new Ventura County employees a 401(k)-style plan, rather than a pension, sometimes mention a lawsuit filed last fall by a former sheriff. Bob Brooks, whose salary as Ventura County sheriff was $227,600 a year when he retired in January 2011, received an annual pension of $283,000. He filed a suit last September seeking an additional pension of $75,000 under a supplemental plan.