Latest Headlines on OCRegister.com
[x] Close
OC Watchdog ~ Your tax dollars at work.

Archive for the 'pensions' Category

« Previous Entries

You guys stink! Democrat reads riot act to fellow Democrats in state capitol

November 13th, 2009, 2:08 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

YouTube Preview ImageYou may have heard by now that things are dysfunctional in Sacramento… that the bloom is off the golden rose that is California… that we’re broke and all that.

But rarely has political paralysis been laid out as barely, as sharply, as jaw-droppingly and refreshingly, as when California Treasurer Bill Lockyer testified recently about legislative reform. It made us laugh out loud.

On reining in the public pension system and its skyrocketing costs:  ”It’s impossible for this legislature to reform the pension system, and if we don’t, we bankrupt the state. And I don’t think anybody could do it here because of who elected you. … We Democrats have to call other Democrats on it. That’s two thirds of the problem.”

On failure to lead: “People like you that should be doing the oversight so that we manage smartly aren’t. You aren’t.” Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Employee unions • State government • pensions | 62 Comments »

Public pension reform initiatives are filed for 2010 ballot

November 6th, 2009, 1:34 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

broken-piggy-bankTapping in to public outrage over gold-plated public employee pensions, the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility filed two reform initiatives with the state Attorney General’s office on Thursday.

“With more than $200 billion in retirement debts and skyrocketing costs crowding out the investments we need in education, health care, transportation, public safety and the environment, it is time for a statewide solution to our retirement benefits crisis,” said foundation president Marcia Fritz in a prepared statement.

“By requiring all new non-safety public employees at all levels of government to work until their Social Security retirement age for full benefits and ending the politicians’ raids and abuses of public pension funds, California public agencies can offer secure retirement benefits that are fair for taxpayers and their employees,” she said.

The Public Employee Benefits Reform Initiative would apply a benefits cap to the benefit plans offered to all new state, local government, school district, university and special district employees beginning July 1, 2011.

Early estimates show the initiative would save more than $1 billion the first year, and $500 billion over 30 years, as new workers replace those who retire.

How? By raising the age at which workers can retire with full benefits, and by limiting guaranteed benefit formulas to 75 percent of pay for a full career’s work. ”Significant additional savings would come from requiring new employees to wait until they reach MediCare eligibility age before supplemental retiree health benefits begin,” the foundation says.

The “Ten Commandments” of both versions of the initiative include: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Elections • pensions | 159 Comments »

Met inked deal for up to $100,000 with ’strategic communications’ consultant

October 22nd, 2009, 12:14 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

marathonAs the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California sought approval for new union contracts that would hike employee pay and pensions, it hired a “strategic communications” consultant - for up to $100,000 - to help get the work done, reports our  former colleague Chris Reed of The San Diego Union Tribune.

We at The Watchdog were a bit puzzled early on in this  pitched battle when our usual (and quite reliable) media contacts at Met - one of whom earns more than $150,000 a year - forwarded our questions and requests to consultant Marathon Communications.

But there’s a logical reason for going outside, officials said.

“We were retained in late July to help Met communicate about the tentative MOU,” Marathon’s Brian Lewis told us in an email. “We were hired to get the word out to the media about the new agreement because the people you ordinarily deal with at Met are members of one of the four bargaining units and stood to be direct beneficiaries of the agreement.”

Reed has posited that Marathon may have had a hand in silencing our colleagues at the Los Angeles Times, who didn’t see fit to report on the issue. As if, Lewis says.

“Contrary to what you may have read on the Internet, we have no control over the media no matter how much we would like to,” Lewis wrote. (That made us chuckle, which was Lewis’s intent, which shows he may have some sway over the media after all.)

We have asked Met for a copy of Marathon’s contract, and for a total of its invoices - as well as for the contracts and invoices of other consultants who worked on the contract negotiations. We’ll update you when we get word.

Meantime, Marathon’s description of its work sheds an interesting light on our democracy: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Employee unions • Special districts • Water • pensions | 18 Comments »

Supes ponder legislation to stop double dipping

October 20th, 2009, 2:47 pm by Jennifer Muir

Orange County could soon back legislation aimed at stopping double-dipping, the practice of retirees collecting their pension, then going back to work for another public agency.

Supervisor John Moorlach today asked the county’s legislative staff to begin looking at crafting legislation that could curtail the practice.

“The people who double dip are not bad people,” Moorlach said. “This is a system that has allowed them to do certain things like this.”

Here’s how the system works and how Moorlach is thinking of changing it: Right now, public employees who retire under one public system, such as the California Public Employees Retirement System, can’t collect a pension and go back to work full time for another agency if the second agency also is under same retirement system.

They can still double-dip, but they can’t work more than 960 hours a year.

But if a Calpers retiree goes to work for an agency like Orange County, which has its own retirement system, they can collect a pension and a paycheck for working full time. That’s why Sheriff Sandra Hutchens and CEO Tom Mauk are able to rake in nearly half a million dollars a piece each year when you add up their pay and pension.

Moorlach thinks there should be a law that requires public employee retirement systems to work together and offer reciprocity instead of allowing folks to collect two checks every month. It would be no different than when an Orange County employee who is not retired goes to work for Los Angeles County: The two retirement systems work together to transfer over pension credit for the worker’s eventual retirement.

So he asked staff to look into crafting legislation and how it would work.

(Worth noting: A ballot initiative by the pension watchdog group the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility also plans to address the double-dipper issue. Moorlach sits on the foundation’s advisory board.)

Board chairwoman Pat Bates said the effort should dovetail with the county’s effort to come up with a policy for the other kind of double dippers — county retirees who come back to work part time. And she asked that staff also look at elected officials with term limits who get a pension.

Posted in: 000-plus pension club • Big public pension club • County government • pensions | 54 Comments »

State sues bank over alleged fraud against CalPERS, CalSTRS

October 20th, 2009, 12:04 pm by BRIAN JOSEPH, Sacramento Correspondent

California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced this morning that he is suing the Boston-based State Street Bank and Trust for more than $200 million for alleged “unconscionable fraud” against California’s two largest pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS.

Unsealed today by a Sacramento County Superior Court judge, the suit claims State Street illegally overcharged the California Public Employees Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System for the cost of executing foreign currency trades since 2001.

The suit was originally filed, under seal, by “Associates Against FX Insider Trading,” whistleblowers who claim the bank added a secret mark-up to the cost of foreign currency trades. Brown subsequently launched his own, independent investigation, which confirmed State Street was overcharging the two funds.

“Over a period of eight years, State Street bankers committed unconscionable fraud by misappropriating millions of dollars that rightfully belonged to California’s public pension funds,” Brown said in a press release. “This is just the latest example of how clever financial traders violate laws and rip off the public trust.”

Posted in: pensions | 9 Comments »

New Field Poll: Voters favor limiting public pension benefits

October 16th, 2009, 12:32 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

field-pollAs local government spokesman Mike Heart noted in our story this morning, ” If it’s not an orderly retreat from an unsustainable position, it’s a rout.”

And a new Field Poll suggests a rout could be coming.

“California voters support the idea of changing the rules governing pension benefits paid to newly hired state and local government workers to make them somewhat less generous,” says the poll, released today. “Majorities support each of the following three possible alternatives:

  • setting an upper limit on the amount of benefits paid to these workers at retirement (60%),
  • replacing the current pension system with a 401k retirement savings plan (56%),
  • and making current pension-setting formulas less generous (51%).”

Folks continue to have a soft spot for public safety workers, and support giving them “somewhat more generous” benefits than other public employees get; and they’re against a more stringent proposal to tax the retirement incomes of all public retirees who receive more than $50,000 in pension benefits. (Do you hear that great sigh of relief?!)

For details of the poll, see the results here or click here: field-poll.

The poll is quite timely, as folks are casting about for a cure to California’s public pension crisis. One idea is the Public Employee Benefits Reform Initiative, which is making its way to a ballot box near you. Another is the landmark deal just struck between the County of Orange and its union - a mutual agreement to start a two-tiered retirement system (though experts say this won’t save much money for quite some time). And then there are the ideas of Heart’s agency, the tiny Orange County Vector Control District, which has its own blueprint for fixing the problem.

May the messy gears of democracy start spinning.

More Watchdog:

 

Posted in: pensions | 64 Comments »

Radical ideas for pension reform: Don’t let people retire so young!

October 16th, 2009, 4:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

ocvcdlogoA certain segment of our readership would never dream of asking public employees for a solution to California’s public employee pension crisis. Sacre bleu!

And, frankly, it came as a surprise to us at The Watchdog when we heard from the tiny Orange County Vector Control District, eager to float some big ideas on how to solve California’s big pension problem.

“I don’t exactly want to say we’re a lone voice crying in the wilderness,” said spokesman Mike Hearst (but we can say that, since they pretty much are). “It’s just that everyone agrees that the pension formulas are unsustainable. And everyone agrees that it has to change. So we’re doing this because we’re concerned that if it’s not an orderly retreat from an unsustainable position, it’s a rout.”

Perhaps we can call this “enlightened self-interest”?

So OC Vector Control - the wee government charged with keeping rats, mosquitoes, and the diseases they spread at bay - sent its radical ideas (and lots of cool color charts) in an 8-page letter to the California Public Employees Retirement System, whose investments are down $50-or-so billion - roughly 28 percent. (And which you, dear taxpayers, may well wind up bailing out).

Basically, OC Vector is urging CalPERS to :vector-control

  • hike the age at which public employees can retire,
  • cut the overly-generous formulas used to calculate pensions,
  • and stop applying newly-adopted, generous formulas retroactively to all employees (including those who’ve been working for 30 years and are on the verge of retiring. That’s bloody expensive!).

All this through negotiation with employee unions, of course, the district urges.

There’s another idea that OC Vector would like to pursue, but it hasn’t gotten the nod from its board of directors yet: Set a dollar cap on how much money any single retiree can earn per year. “Should it be $100,000? Or $200,000? I don’t know,” Hearst said. “But it should be something.”

In its letter to CalPERS, OC Vector says: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Employee unions • Special districts • pensions | 117 Comments »

MWD management union fires first legal shot across the bow

October 14th, 2009, 3:59 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

met-logoThe day before the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California pulled contentious union contracts off the table, the union representing its managers and professionals threatened to sue if, indeed, it did so.

(In case you missed it, it was the managers and professionals - i.e., the most highly-paid folks, with the most time in - who stood to gain the most from the sweetened pension formula that was at the core of the controversy.)

“This office represents the Management and Professional Employees Association of the Metropolitan Water District, AFSCME Local 1001 (”MAPA”),” says the Oct. 9 letter. “I write this letter to advise you that in the event that the Metropolitan Water District should repudiate its negotiated labor agreement with MAPA, MAPA will immediately seek legal remedies against the District.”

The folks who sent us this letter would like us to stress that it is not the rank-and-file employees who are threatening to sue; it’s the white collar types. See the full letter here: met-management-union-plans-to-sue.

More Watchdog:

Posted in: Employee unions • Special districts • Water • pensions | 38 Comments »

« Previous Entries