
CalPERS: $5 Billion Shortfall as Risk Shifts to Taxpayers
CalPERS, the Golden State’s public employee retirement system, is seeking to shift the cost and risk of pensions to taxpayers after a $5 billion shortfall in 2014.

CalPERS, the Golden State’s public employee retirement system, is seeking to shift the cost and risk of pensions to taxpayers after a $5 billion shortfall in 2014.

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.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) has sold its investment in Remington Outdoor, the parent company for Bushmaster firearms–the firearm that Adam Lanza stole and used in his his heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary.

California schools are about to suffer a 235% increase in the percentage of their annual budgets that are devoted to teacher pensions managed by the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS). The stunningly higher costs will slash the number of classroom teachers in all predominantly middle-class schools, but exempt inner-city school districts with high “English learners and recipients of subsidized meals.”

The California Teachers’ Retirement Trust (CalSTRS) board directed its staff and consultants last week to evaluate the risks of investing in thermal coal companies.

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.