January 23, 2012, 12:05 AM
While most of the state's roughly 480 cities and towns are entangled in a heated debate about future pension costs, three small cities in Contra Costa County are quietly sitting on the sidelines.
Most public employees in California receive a defined-benefits pension, which guarantees an...
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August 19, 2011, 12:05 AM
California's public teacher pension system is considered "high risk” because it’s expected to run out of money in the next 30 years, according to a new state auditor report. The report by State Auditor Elaine Howle adds the California State Teachers' Retirement System...
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August 12, 2011, 12:05 AM
A young Texas couple with a multibillion-dollar hedge fund fortune is bankrolling a series of reports by one of California's most influential pension overhaul groups. The until-now secret $150,000 grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to the California Foundation for Fiscal...
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August 4, 2011, 12:05 AM
The California Teachers Association and California State Teachers’ Retirement System are opposing a bill that would limit pension “spiking,” the practice of boosting salaries right before retirement to increase pension payouts. SB 27, authored by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo...
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July 29, 2011, 12:05 AM
The reporters at the News of the World hacked cell phones to get tabloid scoops, and CalPERS is appalled. In a statement last week quoted by many financial news outlets, Anne Simpson, the state pension fund’s corporate governance chief, denounced the “corruption of the governance...
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June 27, 2011, 12:05 AM
California is shrinking retirement benefits for the managers who oversee corrections officers at state prisons, saving $9.6 million next fiscal year. The rank-and-file officers guarding inmates negotiated away the extra pension contribution they'd received for more than a decade. In...
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June 8, 2011, 12:05 AM
A judge has ruled that the University of California does not have to provide university-sponsored medical benefits to retirees of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, whose health benefits were altered after the lab's management changed in 2007. Plaintiffs and Livermore Lab retirees...
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April 7, 2011, 12:05 AM
An unknown out-of-state foundation has become a substantial backer of an ambitious nonprofit group that is positioning itself at the center of the state's debate over public pensions. Democratic consultant Marcia Fritz, who runs the nonprofit Californians for Fiscal Responsibility, first...
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January 31, 2011, 12:05 AM
A flood of financial services firms have registered lobbyists to comply with a new law enacted in the wake of public pension "pay-to-play" scandals in New York and California – even as state officials said they're already working on changes to the law seen as confusing and...
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November 12, 2010, 12:05 AM
Jim Enochs of Ceres, Stanislaus County, has the biggest pension in the entire California State Teachers' Retirement System – a hefty $285,460. But he says he’s just as worried as anyone that the soaring cost of public employee pensions is driving the Golden State into a...
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October 14, 2010, 12:05 AM
Four former employees of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory whose retiree medical benefits changed after the lab's management changed in 2007 are suing the UC Board of Regents, saying they have a right to the university-provided medical benefits they were promised. Plaintiffs and...
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September 22, 2010, 12:05 AM
Many of the loudest calls for California public pension reform point to law enforcement retirement plans as Exhibit A in showing that the state is too generous to police officers and other public safety employees. So it is interesting to note that the Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg...
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May 24, 2010, 12:08 AM
The California primary is little more than two weeks away, and the timer on the public pension time bomb continues to tick. The unfunded liability on California state pensions is perhaps half a trillion dollars, as a Stanford University study directed by former lawmaker Joe Nation had it; or...
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May 10, 2010, 12:36 AM
Federico Buenrostro Jr., former head of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, allegedly received the keys to a Lake Tahoe condominium and a six-figure salary when he left state service in 2008 to start work for an investment consulting firm, according to a civil fraud lawsuit...
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April 6, 2010, 12:05 AM
In post-recession, post-stimulus-program America, we’ve gotten used to some frighteningly big numbers being thrown around in the discussion of public finance. Nevertheless, it was difficult not to be alarmed at the bottom line in a study of California's pension obligations conducted by...
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