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Tag: CalPERS

Reuters / Max Whittaker

CalPERS vs. Jerry Brown over Pension Contributions

The CalPERS Board voted to refuse California Gov. Jerry Brown’s modest demand to decrease their expected pension investment returns by a tiny 0.2% year, because the impact would have increased pension contribution costs by about $1.2 billion across nearly 800,000 employees–about $125 per month, on average.

Reuters / Max Whittaker

L.A. Times Columnist’s Criticism of Pension Analysis Flawed

In a recent Los Angeles Times “Economy Hub” post on public-sector pensions, Michael Hiltzik took a shot at the California Policy Center for analyzing the average pensions of full-career Calpers retirees–those who work at least 30 years–in its pension analyses.

Reuters / Max Whittaker

Pension Crisis: Cut 30% of Payroll or Overturn Prop. 13

Each new California legislative session starts with Republicans yakking about cutting state and local public pension benefits that are over $1 trillion underfunded. But as a minority party and with many of its loudest advocates hypocritically receiving a public pension, reform has just been about yakking. But with CalPERS’ actuaries demanding a pension funding increase from $3.7 billion to $7.25 billion by 2020, the state must either cut payroll by 30 percent or find a massive new tax source, like overturning Prop. 13.

AP Photo

California Pensions Move Closer to Divesting from Coal

California’s pension funds moved one step closer to divesting from coal on Wednesday, with an Assembly committee approving SB 185 bill by a 5-1 vote. The bill, which has passed the state Senate, moves to the floor for a vote. It is likely to pass, and Gov.Jerry Brown is likely to sign it into law, though he has opposed measures to ban fracking for oil in the state.

CalPERS (Reuters / Max Whittaker)

Bipartisan Coalition Unveils 2016 Pension Reform Referendum

A bipartisan coalition of former and current elected officials, together with fiscal accountability groups, revealed much-anticipated plans Thursday for the newest installment in statewide ballot initiative efforts to combat the crushing burden of public employee pensions in California. The measure is slated to face California voters in November 2016.

Covered California

CalPERS Could Owe Obamacare $770 Million in “Cadillac Tax’

California government entities and their unions are panicking because Obamacare’s punitive 40% “Cadillac Tax” beginning in 2018 will directly hit the low-deductible and broad-provider network type of “platinum” healthcare coverage that public employees have enjoyed under the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS).

AP Photo/Richard Drew

Stock Market Peak: Worst-Case Scenario for CalPERS and CalSTRS

Investors celebrated the NASDAQ stock market topping the 5,000 level this week for the first time since March 2000. But there were no celebrations in Sacramento for the anniversary of the last time that California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) were over 100 percent funded.

CalPERS (Reuters / Max Whittaker)

CalPERS is Rainbows, Butterflies and Unicorns

The California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) has announced that its solvency has improved and that it is only $89.7 billion underfunded. Unfortunately, CalPERS’s purported solvency of percentage of 77% assumes the fantasy that it can conservatively compound its annual earnings at 7.5% without any losses. But if CalPERS only earns 4.5% a year–a rate conservative private pensions often shoot for–the fund’s long-term liability is a staggering $290 billion.

Bob Hertzberg (Ric Francis / AP)

Cal Lawmaker Proposes Taxing Services to Pay Pensions

With California facing what Steven Greenhut calls “Death by Pension,” former Democrat Speaker of the California Assembly and newly elected State Senator Bob Hertzberg released details of his Senate Bill 8 tax manifesto. What he refers to as the “Upward