March 8, 2013, 12:05 AM
At least three board members overseeing underfunded municipal retirement systems in California have scrapped plans to attend a conference in Hawaii even as conference organizers defended the gathering after a recent California Watch report revealed that some pension funds planned to send as many as...
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June 18, 2012, 12:05 AM
Despite staggering pension fund shortfalls, officials overseeing some of the largest public retirement systems in the Bay Area have spent more than $60,000 since the beginning of 2008 to attend conferences just miles from their homes, expense records show. For example, in May 2009, five...
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June 15, 2012, 12:05 AM
The agencies that manage retirement benefits for California teachers and governmental employees are standing by JPMorgan Chase for now despite a recent $2 billion trading loss that has sparked two federal investigations and reignited calls for tougher bank oversight. Representatives of the...
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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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