Pension Reform

State Attorney General Kamala Harris, eager to please public employee unions, has cunningly limned the title and summary of an amendment to the state Constitution that would legislate pension reform.

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.

In the past, the Manhattan Institute has effectively highlighted how rising California public pension costs are cutting into “basic infrastructure maintenance, public safety, education, and quality-of-life services such as parks and libraries.” But in the newest report, “Pension Costs are Crowding Out Salaries,” by Senior Fellow Stephen D. Eide, the Manhattan Institute reveals how California public employees themselves are suffering. In a decade where pension costs rose by 135 percent and healthcare premiums by 85 percent, public sector wages grew 4.6 percent slower than private sector workers’ salaries.

Former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed is trying to restore fiscal sanity to the state of California by taking on the Goliath CalPERS, America’s largest public pension fund, with a pension reform measure for the November 2016 ballot. Reed is